


The Devil and His Due

by houseofcannibals



Series: HouseofCannibal's Hannigram Saga [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Bondage, Bottom Will, Fluff and Angst, Hannigram - Freeform, M/M, Oral Sex, Top Hannibal, Wax Play, hannibal and will are complete switches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-30
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-01 22:05:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 41,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4036204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/houseofcannibals/pseuds/houseofcannibals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Please read as a sequel to my other work, 'The Devil's Master'. </p><p>After Will visited Hannibal in the BSHCI, once, Hannibal has been unable to get Will off his mind. Will dominated Hannibal completely, and he wants nothing more than for Will to do it again, but Will refuses to visit again, or reply to Hannibal's letters. Will has tried to move on with his life, managing to settle down for a while with Molly before a wedge was driven between them. He longs for Hannibal, but is too stubborn to give Hannibal what he wants. So, Hannibal decides that he'll have to pay Will a visit instead...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> This takes place sometime after my first fic 'The Devil's Master', after the events of Red Dragon (as they play out in the novel, with some alterations). Since it was started before the third season aired and I was basing my predictions on the plot of the novels, there is some retroactive discontinuity with the show's timeline. But within it's own self-contained continuity, it should make sense. More or less.

#  'The Devil and His Due' 

_My love is of a birth as rare_  
_As ‘tis, for object, strange and high;_  
_It was begotten by Despair,_  
_Upon Impossibility._  
\--  
_As lines, so love’s oblique, may well_  
_Themselves in every angle greet:_  
_But ours, so truly parallel,_  
_Though infinite, can never meet._

_Therefore the love which us doth bind,_  
_But Fate so enviously debars,_  
_Is the conjunction of the mind,_  
_And opposition of the stars._

\- Andrew Marvell, ‘The Definition of Love’

##  Chapter One 

## 

_That, for all furniture you’ll find_  
_Only your picture in my mind._

The only sounds in the vast chapel which constituted the foyer were his own footsteps on the inlaid stone, his unhurried stride echoing pleasantly in the cool stillness of the palace. Dr Lecter paused to look down at the skull graven on the floor; one hand resting on a granite pillar, he tilted his head back to admire the grand Byzantium dome above. The chapel is quite exquisite, severe and beautiful and timeless. He stood for some time examining the intricate arabesque patterning before continuing. He was in no great hurry.

He paused again at the foot of a great staircase where the Riace bronzes stand. The great bronze warriors had been raised from the seafloor in Dr Lecter’s own lifetime, and had been an installation in the palace for some time now, but he had noticed on his most recent visits that something had changed about the younger of the two figures. First the posture had begun to shift, one hand coming to rest over a great seam which now ran across the muscular stomach; then the face, the beard receding between visits into a light stubble, the features softening. He could not deny what the statue had become. Like so many frescoes and nudes in the palace, it now undoubtedly bore Will Graham’s likeness.

Dr Lecter examined the statue for some time, enthralled by its severe beauty. He glanced at its mate, trying to discern if it, too, was changing. It did not appear different. He pondered whether he ought to affect a change himself, and shift the bronze features to resemble his own countenance. He and Will, guarding the foot of the staircase, naked bodies turned toward one another, reaching out. Perhaps. 

He dismissed the idea, agitated. Will should not be here at all. He would have to do something about that. But not now. For now Dr Lecter was content to examine Will’s smooth, slim frame exquisitely recreated atop his plinth for a moment more, before his polished leather loafers began to ascend the stairs. 

There are a thousand rooms in Dr Lecter’s memory palace, and miles of corridors. Every object and tableaux furnishing the airy, high-ceilinged rooms has hundreds of facts attached to it, enormous amounts of information stored with precision and clarity, accessible whenever he should need it. But this is not the sole reason why Dr Lecter constructed the palace, so many years ago, when he was a free man and could walk the spaces he has recreated in memory at will. He constructed it so that he might live there, if ever his physical body was confined. In recent months, he has done little else. 

On this particular visit, he felt melancholic. He wandered slowly down a long frescoed corridor, through a scent of gardenias. Many of the paintings he passed were striking and absurd, mnemonic devices that would seem meaningless to all but Lecter himself, for whom the paintings said a great deal. He was not looking to retrieve anything in particular today, however, only to pass the time. 

There are whole collections in Dr Lecter’s memory palace which serve no mnemonic value beyond the simple need to preserve beauty when his body is trapped in places devoid of it, and it was towards one such collection that he was heading. He had dressed himself today in a stunning velvet smoking jacket, the same maroon as the flecks in his eyes, embroidered with gold, and scented himself with yellow bergamot and mimosa, a feathering of cinnamon. In the memory palace, there is nothing of jail, not its smells or its attire. Dr Lecter had grown very weary of his coarse greying-blue jumpsuit, of the odours of Clorox in the drains, of semen, sweat, Dr Chilton’s dreadful cologne. And new things of late, things most unpleasant. The unyielding grasp of the straightjacket. The roughness of an orderly’s hands on him as they fastened and tightened the constant restraints. The stale smell of his own urine as he waited for them to change him, unable to do it himself. The tang of drugs as they shot something into his arm, again and again…

But he would not sully the memory palace with those concerns. For the time being, he walked in beauty towards a chamber he had not consciously built but could not bring himself to tear down, whose collection seemed to grow by the day, and whose new installations he always met with pleasant surprise and desire, and a trace of deepest sadness. 

The chamber lay ahead, behind a simple wooden door which was quite at odds with the gilded moulding of the corridor surrounding it. Dr Lecter hesitated, collecting himself, before he opened the door. He was overcome with disappoint when he discovered, as was always the case, that he was alone in the chamber. He chastised himself for getting his hopes up, then stepped inside.

The chamber dedicated to Will Graham is one of the most vast yet plain in the palace. One finds no ostentation here; the chamber is modelled after Will himself. The floor is bare wood sanded smooth, the walls are painted a neutral green, and a masonry fireplace in one corner is piled high with logs, but not burning at present. One encounters scents of the forest, and of animals; there is a hint of Will’s foul cologne that Dr Lecter has grown to love, and of whisky, of smoke. To Dr Lecter, the chamber has begun to smell like something else. It smells like home. 

The paintings and sculptures held within are many and varied. Dr Lecter strolled leisurely amongst the pieces, lips pressed together and fingertips lightly touching over his midriff.

Not all of the installations are pleasant. Here, we find Will in place of Prometheus, chained, face contorted in terrible agony as a great bird rips open his stomach and tears out his innards. Here, he takes St Peter’s position at his crucifixion, in the style Caravaggio painted it, the nails already driven through his palms and feet, head thrown back and mouth opening to scream. Here, Will like Ophelia, drifting in the quiet of the stream, surrounded by flowers; his eyes are open, looking out at the observer in weary regret. 

Most of the pieces are quite different, however. Dr Lecter’s resentment for Will cannot compete with his fascination and desire for the man. It is in this room that we find the most nudes.

Dr Lecter began to move steadily toward his favourite piece, which resides in a rare shadow in the palace. He stood for several minutes admiring it, before sitting on its edge, a little weak in the knees.

On a draped bed carved from pure white marble, the figure of Will Graham lay. He was entirely nude, one leg bent at the knee while the other stretched out, toes curling, hips twisting. His wrists were crossed above his head, tied to the frame of the bed. And the face…

Hannibal put one hand on the smooth, cool marble of Will’s cheek. Will’s lips were slightly parted, his eyes half-closed in ecstasy and brimming with infinite love. With one finger, Hannibal traced the curve of Will’s cheekbone, his lips, his clavicle, down the contours of his chest. His hand lingered over the scar on Will’s stomach, before caressing the cold marble between his legs. The carving was exquisitely detailed.

With a sigh, Hannibal lay his body down beside Will’s on the stone bed. He clasped his hands over his stomach as he would on the hard cot in his cell, and turned his face to look at the other man. It was in this position that he was always able to find sleep, even when his physical body lay bound on a violent ward with screams buzzing the steel bars like hell’s own harp. Some days he would have music play; other times, he was content to bask in the comforting silence. On this visit, he only wanted to lie and to look. 

He would not admit to himself that he was waiting, hoping, that the figure of Will would one day stir.

“Dr Lecter? Are you in there?”

For the briefest of moments, Hannibal entertained the belief that, perhaps, like Galatea, Will had spoken, after all this time. He felt his heart leap. But the statue had not changed. Will was hard and distant as ever.

“Dr Lecter?”

A question outside the palace, outside, a familiar voice, deep and calm. With great reluctance, Hannibal was off the bed and out the chamber, travelling with unnatural speed, down the frescoed halls, down the staircase, through the chapel, out.

Barney watched with fascination as Dr Lecter came back to himself. It took a matter of seconds; one moment he was not there, eyes focussed on something very distant and intangible, then that cold intelligence flooded them again and Barney no longer felt alone in the room. He saw the flicker of disgust and disappointment which filled Dr Lecter’s face as he remembered where he was and what was happening to him, and then it was gone. Dr Lecter was remarkably composed, given his situation. He had managed to maintain a modicum of dignity, even after they put him in the straightjacket and training pants. 

The problems had begun after Christmas, at which time Dr Lecter had been incarcerated for a little over one year. Up until that point, he had been a model patient with only a few, albeit serious, lapses – he had given out Will Graham’s home address to a serial killer, for a start. Chilton had responded with the usual punishments, stripping Lecter’s cell of its books, his drawings and correspondences, even the toilet seat from time to time. Lecter had abided, with a faint amusement in his face which spoke to how petty he found Chilton.

Then Christmas. Lecter had asked for a card to mail, and had been granted. And… It was as though the last of Lecter’s sanity had been sent away in that envelope, Barney thought. No, perhaps sanity was not right. The last of his tolerance for what was happening to him. He became listless, then restless, listless again. He would spend many days in brooding silence, then become bitingly acerbic and unkind with his words, before lapsing back into muteness. For the first time since he was brought into the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, he became violent. Not toward Barney, or the other orderlies – they, better than almost anyone else, knew to treat Lecter with courtesy if they hoped to receive it in return. This was not a lesson Dr Chilton had taken to heart, however.

Barney had not been present when Lecter attacked Chilton, but he had quietly reviewed the security footage later while Chilton was away being stitched up. He could not help thinking that Chilton was largely to blame, the stupid little man. Everyone knew better than to goad Lecter. Everyone knew better than to get too close to the teeth.

“Have you finally stopped sending your little love letters to Will Graham, Hannibal?” Chilton had said, during one of their one-sided therapy sessions. “Did you realise at last that he’s not going to write back? Even before you tried to have him killed, he didn’t want anything to do with you. Will Graham is _over you_ , Hannibal.”

Lecter had watched coolly from the chair to which he was restrained, eyes following Chilton’s pacing like a hawk. He was silent.

“But, oh, look what one of the cleaning staff found when they were tossing your cell,” Chilton had continued, picking a pile of papers from his desk and rifling through them, smiling like a teacher catching their least favourite pupil cheating. “Tucked inside one of your books… I don’t think we can let you keep them if behaviour like this continues.”

“I am allowed my letters and drawings,” Dr Lecter had said, very calm and even. “Where I choose to place them is none of your concern, Frederick.”

“Everything which goes on inside this building is my concern, and you were trying to hide these from me. Now why would you be embarrassed, hmm? Oh, but look at this.”

Chilton had held up a drawing, charcoal on butcher’s paper, a small nude study of Will Graham, remarkably lifelike. It was one of many, small enough to tuck inside the pages of his books. 

“Now this is embarrassing, Hannibal” Chilton had said. He was smudging the detail with his clumsy hands. “Why, this is the equivalent of writing soppy love poetry in your workbooks in the schoolroom. Imagine if the tabloids found out about this – the terrifying Chesapeake Ripper, _smitten_ , and by the man who imprisoned him no less. The papers would have a field day. Of course, I shan’t be telling them. I wouldn’t want to waste good material for the psychiatric journals on tabloid hacks. You think -”

Whatever he had been trying to say was lost in his horrified scream. He had been pacing as he spoke, back and forth in front of Hannibal, back and forth, a little too close, the drawing in one hand and the other gesturing as he talked, too close to Hannibal’s face, too close. It had happened so fast that his scream was slightly delayed. One moment Hannibal was still and watchful; the next, his head darted forward like a snake and his teeth closed around Chilton’s middle and index fingers – he jerked, as though ripping meat from a chicken bone, and a spurt of blood shot from Chilton’s hand and spattered Hannibal’s calm but smiling face. 

That was when the orderlies got a hold of Hannibal and managed to pry his mouth open – _his jaw was like a fucking vice_ , one man told Barney later, still shaking. He hadn’t managed to bite through the fingers completely, but he’d gotten pretty darn close; Chilton would have trouble bending them for the rest of his life. 

Barney wondered if Lecter would have swallowed them whole, or crunched them like carrot sticks. 

They had sedated him while the blood was still drying on his face, his mouth falling slack and Chilton’s blood dribbling from his lips, a little skin caught between his pointed teeth; one of the orderlies had thrown up when they saw it. When Dr Lecter awoke, he was in six-point restraints. He was still groggy from the drugs when Chilton returned from the hospital the next day, hand bandaged like a mitten. 

“What do you have to have to say for yourself?” Chilton had spat, face flushed with fury.

Dr Lecter’s slack face had twisted into an amused smirk. “You taste a little anaemic, Frederick – are you getting enough iron in your diet?”

Dr Lecter had not been allowed back to his regular cell since. In his new padded lodgings, Chilton kept him in a straightjacket for as long as he was ethically allowed to, dignity pants changed twice a day, fed through a tube most of the time. When he wasn’t in the straightjacket, he was strapped to a bed. Chilton allowed the police to try sweating him with sodium amytal more than once to learn details of some of his crimes, to no avail. He was routinely pumped full of tranquilisers which left him feeling nauseous and slow, uncertain of himself. On one occasion, they had given him shock therapy. Of that, Dr Lecter would never tell a soul. For days afterward he had been afraid to visit the memory palace, afraid of the damage to himself that might have been done. To lose himself would be to lose everything. 

Chilton’s fingers had healed, but his ego had not. There was one thing he understood very well about Hannibal Lecter, and that was the man’s biggest fear. Dr Lecter was not afraid of pain, or solitude. The thing he could not stand was indignity. 

It was now March. Chilton showed no sign of relenting. 

Dr Lecter sat at the back of his padded cell, head resting against the wall, legs stretched out in front of him, feet bare. He looked very small bundled up in the straightjacket. He had lost weight, Barney observed, though he had always been trim; his prominent cheekbones stood out like razor blades in his face. But his eyes showed no sign of the dullness which sometimes infested those of the sedated and restrained. His eyes were sharp as ever.

Dr Lecter offered Barney a minute smile, revealing some of his teeth. “Barney, a pleasure.”

“Hello, Dr Lecter. Where were you just then?”

“Somewhere peaceful, where I can move around,” Lecter said, eyes travelling the confines of the cell before settling on Barney once more. Barney felt, as he always did with Lecter’s eyes on him, like a fly was walking around the inside of his head; he maintained eye contact, however, and knew that Lecter respected him for it. 

“Do you have any inkling how long the learned Dr Chilton intends to keep me trussed up like this?” Lecter continued, sounding slightly put-out, as though the incompetence of a lesser man had made him late for a pressing engagement. “Not to question the impeccable judgement of the good doctor, but I fail to see the therapeutic value and it’s beginning to border on cruel and unusual punishment. Do I need to bother my lawyer?”

Barney couldn’t help but smile a touch. “I’ve spoken to Dr Chilton, told him you’ve been behaving for me. I think you’ll be back in your regular cell sooner rather than later.”

“Why thank you, Barney,” Lecter said, and there was genuine appreciation in his tone. Barney nodded in acknowledgment. He knew better than to think Lecter liked him, and didn’t doubt that the man would kill him in a heartbeat if it might facilitate an escape, or amuse him. But a little courtesy went a long way with Lecter, and Barney, despite his size and gruffness, was a surprisingly gentle and courteous man. 

“Now, Dr Lecter, I’ve got some solid food for you here and I’m willing to spoon feed you if you promise to behave,” Barney said, indicating the tray he’d brought with him piled with chopped-up meat and limp green beans, a slush of mashed potatoes, a cup of orange juice with a straw in it. “If you’re good, we can feed you like this from now on, and you’ll be back to feeding yourself before you know it. But if you try anything funny, anything at all, and especially if you try to bite me, you’ll be taking your meals through a tube from now till next Christmas, you have my word on that. What do you think? Are you going to behave?”

Lecter tilted his head, acknowledging the courtesy. “Of course.”

“You’re not going to try to bite?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Barney.”

“Alright then.”

Barney fed Lecter slowly, without incident. When the tray was cleared, he raised the straw to Lecter’s lips and let him drink, then wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. Lecter smiled, but he looked thoughtful and unhappy. 

“How was that?"

“An improvement over the tube, thank you Barney.”

“You’re welcome. And, uh, well…” Barney paused, unusually embarrassed. Chilton had given strict orders that Lecter’s dignity pants be changed only twice a day, a demand which Barney found unspeakably ugly and childish. He didn’t like to think of any of the patient’s laying uncomfortable in their own waste, but particularly one so cognisant, so lucid. “Are you, uh, wet, Dr Lecter?”

Lecter’s eyes flashed at the mention of his indignity, but his gaze was steady. “I have neither urinated nor voided my bowels, but thank you for your concern. I do apologise that you have to take care of my bodily functions like this, when I am perfectly capable of dealing with them myself. You should tell Dr Chilton that he ought to change me himself, if he insists on keeping me like this. At the very least, you ought to demand a pay rise.”

Barney stifled a laugh. “I’ll pass that on. I’ll be back in a few hours to check on you and, uh, you know.”

“Thank you, Barney,” Dr Lecter murmured, closing his eyes. His lips twitched downward in faint unhappiness; otherwise he looked serene. Barney felt a pang of sympathy for him, which surprised him. He wished he could give Dr Lecter a book, but he would be unable to read it. He did not understand how Lecter’s brilliant mind could fail to stagnate in conditions such as these. 

Barney left the cell but stood beyond the clear plastic barrier a moment more, watching. If Dr Lecter was aware of the eyes on him, he did not acknowledge it. He had receded into his memory palace once more.  



	2. Chapter 2

_Had we but world enough and time,_  
_This coyness… were no crime._

 

The night was hot and airless, and Will Graham could not sleep.

He lay on one side in his small bed, covered only by a thin sheet, body curled toward the space where Molly had been. The house was very quiet, the soft breathing of the dogs from the floor and the distant lapping of the tide the only sounds in the swallowing dark. Will’s eyes were open, focussed on nothing. One hand crept out from under the sheet to touch Molly’s pillow, to rest where her head had lain. He could still smell, or fancied he could still smell, the sweet fragrance of her shampoo. Perhaps it was only his imagination. Probably it was only his imagination. Molly had been gone for some time.

Will rolled onto his back and closed his eyes, but that didn’t help; he could still see the performance of his latest profile dancing behind his lids on an endless loop, the _Great Red Dragon_ , and how great he was, capering like an actor on a lit stage around the bodies of his victims, the bodies he had _changed_ , Mrs Leeds there, and Mrs Jacobi too, mirrors in their eyes and their mouths hanging open, a little bloody but that was fine, their blood sacrifice was for the Dragon, it was all for the Dragon – and he knelt beside Mrs Jacobi now, his naked body so big and powerful and her so fragile, too fragile to survive the fiery consuming majesty of his Becoming, and now he bent his head to her tender thigh and _sank his teeth in_ –

He opened his eyes again, a bitter taste in his mouth. The man who had believed he was the Dragon was long dead and buried now, but he still stirred in Will’s mind like a snake, receding into the shadows beneath the foundations from time to time but not leaving, no, never leaving while Will’s strange brain continued to tick. It was always that way. He was porous; he let them in, let their dark tides of madness wash over him and into him, and they did not leave willingly. It had been the same with Garret Jacob Hobbs. It had been the same with –

No. He did not want to even think the man’s name, not in this bed he’d shared with Molly. Not after what he’d done to Will – what he’d done and done again. He would not think of him.

But of course, it was impossible not to. As with the rest, the other psychopaths who rented his headspace, he had let the monster in, and could never rid himself of him entirely. Hannibal Lecter moved beneath Will’s skin like his own blood. 

He sat up in bed, agitated. He was not going to get any sleep, not with Dolarhyde very much awake in his head, showing Will his crime scenes like reels of home movies, and Lecter lurking in every shadow. The dogs stirred and whined sweetly as he climbed out of bed and padded into the bathroom, but they did not follow. The dogs missed Molly as much as he did. They would guard the bed expectantly, in case she came back, even after so many months. Sometimes, he wondered if he was doing the same.

The glare of the bathroom light chased away whatever vespers of sleep he’d managed to bottle. Will stood for a moment with his hand still on the knob, forgetting exactly where he was. He no longer lost time like he once had, some years ago now, but the insomnia made the days and nights all blur into one, an endless timeless nothing-day without hope of change. For a moment, he could not place himself in the world, because he felt he had no place. He was terrified and adrift. 

His mind blanked at the glare, then came back to him in trickles. He was in the bathroom of his small house in the Keys. The dogs were asleep in the bedroom. Molly was gone. Molly had left after the stabbing, packing her things and moving to her parents’ place in Oregon before he was discharged from the hospital. Molly had been gone for months now. Molly was not coming back. 

The worst thing about it was not that she was gone. He had loved her in his own flawed way, and he felt her absence about the house like a draft. But he could live without her; he knew that with a cold certainty that made him feel callous and a little ashamed of himself. He had loved her, but she hadn’t been like breath to him. He would go on. 

No, the worst thing about it all, about the whole wretched mess, was that _he could empathise with why she left him_. He understood completely, and he hated that, but he couldn’t help himself. He saw himself through her eyes, saw a strangely hollow man with killers moving behind his eyes, and he was disgusted. He was horrified. He couldn’t blame her for leaving him. He would have done the same thing.

Will put his hands on the sides of the basin, gripping so hard his knuckles were white, and raised his face to the mirror. He inhaled sharply, feeling his grip tighten enough to make his nails scrape against the porcelain. More than six months had passed since he was let out of the hospital, but the sight of the scar still horrified him afresh every time. 

He supposed he was lucky that Dolarhyde’s knife had missed his eye. He supposed he was lucky that it had missed his throat, or his heart for that matter. He supposed. 

What it had not missed was his left cheekbone, or the soft flesh of his cheek. He could still hear, with sickening clarity, the crunch of bone as Dolarhyde put his full and substantial weight on the handle of the knife to shove it through Will’s head, Molly screaming from the water’s edge and the gurgle of his own hot blood in his throat, and he was choking on it, _he was going to die here on the beach choking to death on his own blood._

Hesitantly, he raised two fingers and traced the scar. It didn’t hurt anymore, hadn’t hurt for a while, but he could remember the great ache that had filled his head when he woke in hospital and tried to move his jaw, like a concrete weight had been dropped on him and shattered him. It was an ugly thing, beginning just below his eyes and veering in a jagged curve toward his lips, but Will had never been a man overly concerned with vanity; this was just one more scar to add to his growing list. The problem was that he couldn’t hide it, unlike the puckered bullet wound he’d received in Garret Jacob Hobbs’ kitchen, or the looping white scar across his stomach he’d received in Hannibal’s. The memories associated with these were just as unpleasant for Will, but Molly had been able to live with them. Not his one though. The idea of looking at that scar every day and remembering how it had happened, remembering Will bloody and choking on the beach with Dolarhyde straddling him, Dolarhyde crashing after her with the knife still dripping Will’s blood and the gun in her shaking hands and how she’d shot him in the thigh and the face and the face again, screaming and screaming, flecks of his blood and his bone on her face in her hair his hair on fire he was dead he was dead oh God _she’d killed a man_ –

Will understood perfectly why she’d left him, and he couldn’t begrudge her for it. Molly simply could not stand to look at him anymore.

He met his own eyes in the mirror and smiled wearily. He looked like hell. The sleep deprivation was showing; he was very pale. He could not remember the last time he’d slept well. The nightmares –

Never mind. He washed his face with cold water and rinsed out his mouth, then poured himself two fingers of whiskey and headed for the couch. He sat in the quiet dark for several minutes before thinking to turn on a lamp, sipping his whiskey and glancing around the small room, the meagre clutter that constituted his life. His lures and fishing gear. A few loose tools and engine pieces. The blankets and pillows the dogs sometimes slept on. Some books, many bottles. A single photograph of Alana and one of Beverly in simple wooden frames. A snapshot of Abigail which he often had to turn around. None of Molly, not yet, maybe never. 

_None of Hannibal._

A sound from the bedroom, then Winston was nosing open the door and trotting into the room. He came close enough for Will to pet, before curling up at his feet with a small whine and snuffle. The old boy was still looking out for him, Will thought with a smile. He reached down to rub Winston behind the ears, then downed the last of his whiskey and made up his mind. Stepping around the snoozing dog, he selected a book from the shelf and returned to his seat, pouring himself another stiff drink before opening it. It was an old leather-bound volume of Dumas’s _Le Grande Dictionnaire de Cuisine_ , something he had found in a book store in town and bought on impulse. Molly had never asked about it, which he was grateful for; Will had never shown a particular interest in cooking before, other than the simple joy of preparing a fish he had caught himself. He was sure she could not have thought to remove it from the shelf and, if she had, she could not have found the documents secreted between its stiff old pages. She would have said something if she had. No. She would have thrown the book at his head. 

Tucked inside the book were four letters, a scrap of newspaper, a card, and an unmarked disc in a plastic sleeve. Will removed them and put the book aside, running his rough fingers tentatively over the documents. Hannibal Lecter looked coolly out at him from the newspaper clipping, piercing eyes staring directly into the camera. The picture had been taken on the first day of the media circus that had been his trial. Hannibal looked good, tall and slender and somehow elegant even in his restraints. It was the only picture of him that Will allowed himself. Anymore and it would have felt like he was keeping a scrapbook, as some of the doctor’s deranged fans certainly did, Francis Dolarhyde amongst them. 

Will had visited Hannibal at the asylum only once, some months after he had been confined in his windowless cell under Frederick Chilton’s sadistic care. He had visited, and he had done things to Hannibal that he still dreamt of often with a fierce longing that left him confused and aroused. He had the footage, on the disc he had stolen from Chilton and had watched only once, sitting unselfconsciously on his porch beside Margot Verger, whose stoic composure had broken into a wide grin when she saw Will use her riding crop on Hannibal’s pale backside, and then into helpless giggles when she noticed Will getting hard just watching. “Did he feel good?” she had asked, looking relaxed in a way she only ever did around Will, with whom she had developed an easy and open friendship that neither cared to analyse beyond mutual love of whiskey and disgust of her brother. “Oh yes,” Will had replied, trying to cross his legs to hide his erection and failing miserably, making Margot laugh harder still, “He felt fucking fantastic.”

He put the disc beside the book, wishing he had something to watch it on. Will did not own a television, and would not keep a computer in the house – he had done his very best to isolate himself from the terrible world and ignore whatever ugly news it produced, and was happier for it. Margot had brought a laptop with her last time she visited; perhaps he could invite her again. That would not help soothe his ache tonight, though; as the liquor began to take effect, he could feel his inhibitions failing him and his heartache at Hannibal’s distance beginning to show. He thought of Hannibal beneath him, a drooling helpless wreck, his body tightening and shuddering as he came, and that look in his eyes, that look that Will knew could not be love, couldn’t be, but God it looked an awful lot like love. 

He thought of Hannibal asking him to run away with him, and wondered again with pain if he had made the worst decision of his life. 

Swallowing, he picked up the letters instead, to remind himself why Hannibal was bad for him.

Doctor Lecter had written to Will four times since his imprisonment. The first letter had been forwarded to Will from the FBI; Hannibal had not known his home address at the time. It had been sent about a month after Will’s visit to the asylum, written in Hannibal’s delicate copperplate, beautiful even in the felt-tip pen it had been composed with (Dr Lecter was not allowed ballpoints; somebody would lose an eye before the day was out). The letter was short and romantic. 

_Dearest Will,_  
_I confess that your visit has left me hungry for more._  
_I have my books, but the greatest poets could not capture the grace of your body moving against mine, nor the splendour of the ecstasy in your eyes._  
_I have my drawings (and I have drawn many more since your visit), but all art is poor imitation of your beauty._  
_I think of you often, but I cannot grasp and contain a pure idea of you in my mind as I would like to. You are always new. The last of your kisses was even the sweetest; the last smile the brightest; the last movement the most graceful._  
_Do visit again soon, and continue to surprise me._  
_With love, Hannibal Lecter._

The letter had evidently been opened by the FBI when they figured out where it came from; it was standard procedure, especially for mail sent to a high profile figure like Will Graham. There wasn’t much Dr Lecter could do from his cell to weaponize a letter, other than use his words of course, but there was always the chance that he might have gotten hold of something nasty from the cleaning crew, lye perhaps. The letter had been opened, but who exactly had read it before it was forwarded to Will was unclear. Crawford, certainly. Probably Price and Zeller; Jack would have sent it to them to analyse, and they would not have been able to help themselves. Will hoped the reading list began and ended there. He was not embarrassed exactly at what he had done with Lecter in the asylum (it had felt too good to be embarrassed about), but the fact that he was receiving love letters from the man was not something he wanted to make public. _Tattlecrime.com_ would have a field day.

Suffice to say, he had not replied, and he had not accepted Lecter’s request for further visitation, though he’d been on the verge of it often. It had taken all the self-restraint he possessed to stay in Florida and forcibly put Dr Lecter out of his mind. _You were not starting a relationship_ , he reminded himself sternly every time the urge overcame him. _You were saying goodbye._

By the time the second letter arrived, he was with Molly. He was back to fixing diesel engines, something he found mindlessly enjoyable and acceptably normal, and she came to him with a busted boat motor. Molly was almost forty and quite beautiful in her unconscious grace. She began visiting him while he worked, even after he’d fixed the motor for her, and it didn’t take long for her to make her attraction known; she was a straightforward woman, Molly. The first night they made love, in the bedroom and later the kitchen of his ramshackle little house, she didn’t ask about the scar across his stomach, but waited for him to tell her in his own time. He told her the next night, hesitantly, as they sat on the porch drinking whiskey and watching the fireflies; he told her everything, or nearly everything, and she listened to the whole thing without interruption. He told her about being a cop, and then a teacher, and about the FBI. He told her about Crawford, and about killing Garret Jacob Hobbs, and about Abigail. He told her about all the bad people he’d caught, and the bad things he visualised; he confessed to his stay in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, and his murder trial, and the ear in his sink. And finally, with a great rush of relief, like releasing himself from a pair of handcuffs he had been unwittingly wearing for many months, he told her about Hannibal Lecter; about the friendship they had forged while Will hunted for the Chesapeake Ripper, about dining at Lecter’s dinner table, about the linoleum knife and the kitchen floor, and everything that had gone down in Florence before Hannibal’s arrest. He did not mention visiting Lecter, or Lecter’s romantic overtures, nor his own. Molly didn’t need to know about that; he decided he had put it behind him. Molly was good for him. Hannibal most certainly was not. 

Molly listened to his story quietly, sipping her whiskey, and when he was finished she simply nodded and said, “I know. I already googled you. I just wanted to hear it from you.”

Will had flushed crimson and had trouble meeting her eye. “I assume you read all about me on _Tattlecrime.com_? Freddie Lounds has written more extensively on me than any of the psychiatric journals.”

“I saw some of her articles, yeah. She thought you were insane. Are you insane?”

He found himself chuckling at her directness. “I can empathise completely with insane men,” he said, with a wry smile. “So yes, in that sense, when I am inside their heads, I am insane.”

“But you don’t do it anymore? Catch insane men, I mean.”

“No, I’m retired”

“Can you do your empathy thing with me?”

“I can do it with anyone.”

She had tucked her tanned legs under herself and smiled at him. “What am I thinking about right now?”

“It’s not mind-reading,” Will said, rolling his eyes. “It’s just that I… I can think like you, if I want to. I can understand things the way you understand things, I can rationalise the way you rationalise.”

“Sounds like mind-reading. So, think like me, super-detective.”

Will met her eye, seeing that she was only half-serious, and allowed her hardy exterior of self-confidence and the niggling worries beneath seep into him like oil. He wet his lips and shifted his body slightly, unconsciously mirroring the way Molly held herself, her carefully poised appearance of calmness and the tension in her shoulders which betrayed her apprehension. He shrugged as he spoke, as she would, as if dismissing the seriousness of the words and releasing them to the wind. 

“You like me, and you’re not entirely sure why you like me, other than my nice face and decent body, but you do.” She laughed a little at that, but he wasn’t finished. “When you looked me up, you couldn’t help but read up on Hannibal Lecter as well, and you’re too tactful to ask if Lecter fed me human meat before he stabbed me – the answer to that would be yes, by the way, and more than once, and I wasn’t the only one. You’re a strong woman and you know you’re strong because you’ve been tested – you lost someone I think, a lover probably, and you’re concerned that you’re only attracted to me because there isn’t much choice around these parts, and I’m damaged too, and maybe you’re settling. You’re going to stick around though because you find me interesting even though I’m strange, and you’re not one to let a good thing go just because you’re nervous – you know that time is luck, and so you hold onto things. You’re very protective. You won’t mention Lecter around me again unless I bring him up first, because he hurt me, but mostly because you’re frightened of him, and that makes you smarter than you know. When you talk about me to your friends, you’ll say that I’m an ex-cop and leave it at that, because you’d rather not think about the other things that I am. And that also makes you very smart.”

He stopped, and let the words lie for a minute, pouring himself another drink while Molly worked through what he had said and Will worked Molly out of his system. 

“I lost my husband,” she admitted, eventually. Her arms were wrapped around herself as though she were cold, though the evening was temperate. “Cancer. It was five years ago now. We were childhood sweethearts.”

Will nodded but didn’t say anything. Molly didn’t need to hear _I’m sorry for your loss_ any more than she already had; the words had become meaningless.

“You’re right about me,” she said, shivering. “Everything you said. If we’re going to be together, please don’t do that to me again. It was like being dissected.”

“I can’t always help it,” Will confessed. “It’s not something I can shut off. But I won’t lay it out like that; I just needed you to understand where I’m coming from.”

“I understand. But, god, if you can read me like that, I don’t want to think about the killers you get inside of.”

They had left it at that. A few weeks later, Molly had practically moved in with him, though she kept her own little place above the dress shop she ran in town; she was always wary of him, Will knew, even if she didn’t realise it herself, and she needed a space separate from him to escape to if necessary. She called it her workshop, though in truth she did most of her sewing curled up with the dogs on his porch. That was fine; he understood. They were happy enough, neither overly talkative by nature, both content to spend simple days eating seafood and working with their hands and giving themselves to one another in the night time. Will found the warmth of Molly’s body against his very soothing. His nightmares became fewer and fewer.

That was when Lecter’s second letter had arrived, again forwarded from Crawford to the PO box Will kept in Marathon. Molly had picked up his mail for him as she left work that afternoon, and she hadn’t failed to notice the stunning copperplate on the envelope. 

“Who’s that from?” she asked, as she handed the letter over along with the few forensic journals he subscribed to. 

Will felt himself go cold at the sight of the handwriting, and was ashamed at how easily the lie came.

“My friend in Baltimore, Dr Alana Bloom.”

“I thought doctors were supposed to have horrible handwriting,” Molly teased.

Will smiled tightly. “Well she’s a psychiatrist, not a medical doctor. I’ll read this later, let’s go for a walk now.”

They had walked on the beach and later made love, Will distracted and distant, thinking with each thrust about the letter he had secreted out of Molly’s sight, as though it were a beating heart beneath the floorboards. He waited until he was entirely alone the next day to read it. This one was a good deal less romantic than the first.

_Dear William,_  
_Oh, you are a cruel boy, aren’t you? Give a man a taste before snatching it away. I almost admire your cunning. I confess you had me begging like a dog at your feet, but there is only so long you can kick a loyal dog before it will bite. You don’t want me to bite, Will. You know I have the teeth for it._  
_Have you met a pretty girl? Are you trying to settle down like all the other dullards; settle down with your pretty girl and put me behind you? I do hope that is not the case. You and I are unique; neither one of us was made for a boring life. I wonder what will happen first; will you grow tired of your pretty girl, or will she see the monster you really are, hmmm? Time will tell, won’t it Will? Never mind for now. Don’t let me put you off._  
_You enjoyed yourself with me; you cannot deny that. Do you think about me when you fuck your pretty girl, Will? I’m sure she is quite charming, but you could never be wholly yourself around her as you can with me. She would run screaming for the hills._  
_Our correspondence would go easier if you would provide me your home address. You don’t want the FBI reading all my letters to you, do you? People will say we’re in love._  
_Please write back soon, and send pictures. Alternatively, a visit would be splendid. I won’t tell your pretty girl if you don’t._  
_Visit soon Will, or I might be forced to pay you a visit instead._  
_Ta-ta for now. Your friend, Hannibal Lecter._

Will had taken the letter out back with the intention of burning it, but he couldn’t bring himself to. He had hidden it away and washed his hands before he touched Molly again, and shortly after he had bought his book to secret the note inside. But he did not reply. If Hannibal was really pining agonisingly for him, and Will thought he truly might be given the state he had left the man in, then let him. He deserved nothing less. 

Some time had passed, and then this thing with the Red Dragon had come along, two families butchered and Jack Crawford showing up on his doorstep, Crawford tired but as manipulative as ever, and Molly asking Will not to go but of course he had gone, as Jack had known he would, he had gone and he had stepped into the Dragon’s skin to understand his design, and it wasn’t long before Hannibal’s third letter showed up at FBI headquarters. 

_Dear Will,_  
_Petty, petty, petty. I am disappointed in you. I know you have come out of that hole you’ve been hiding in; there’s a killer on the loose, and what a naughty boy he is. But you’ve been hiding for a long time, Will; that perceptive tool of yours will be rusty. Why not pay me a visit and get the scent of it again, hmmm? Of course, you could always just smell yourself. We are so very much alike, only I have better taste in aftershave._  
_This pilgrim you’re seeking will not stop, and I can help you catch him, Will. How long before he slaughters another happy family? Before the month is out, I should think. Will you let them die because you are too petty to pay me a visit? How will you live with yourself?_  
_Tick tock tick tock. You know where to find me._  
_Hannibal Lecter._  
_p.s. Give Molly my love._

Will felt sick when he saw Molly’s name on the page. How Lecter had found out about her he didn’t know; Hannibal always had his ways. Jack watched Will read the letter through a second time before taking it from his shaking hands and scanning it himself. He looked grim when he spoke.

“Do you think Lecter has any valuable information, Will? I want you to answer honestly.”

“No,” Will said, sighing heavily, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. “He’s just fucking with me, Jack. He wants to see me, and he’ll do anything to get me there. You know that – you’ve read his other letters.”

Jack had looked away, a little embarrassed. “Do you want to see him?”

“No,” Will said again, but he hesitated long enough to make Jack uncomfortable. Jack could not quite get his head around the idea of Will’s attraction to the man who had stabbed them both in his kitchen. “No, I don’t need him in my head right now – you know he’ll just try to confuse my thinking. We’ll get this guy on our own, we don’t need Hannibal Lecter’s brand of help.”

Jack had only nodded and left it at that for the time being. But as the month had progressed and the prospect of another family murdered became more and more likely, he had brought the matter up again. 

“Will you go see Lecter, Will? Just see what he has to say at least.”

“I’m not going. You go, if you think he has something to offer.”

“Lecter won’t talk to me and you know it. He’ll screw with me and then clam up, just like he does with Dr Chilton.”

“Send Alana then.”

Jack had become angry with him at once. “I know you care about Dr Bloom, Will, so I’m going to pretend you didn’t make that suggestion.”

Will nodded, eyes averted. Jack was right. The thought of sending Alana to Lecter, after what he’d done to her, was truly awful. Alana was strong but Will knew how badly Hannibal had damaged her; she just hid her trauma well. She was lucky to be able to walk.

“No, you’re right, I wasn’t thinking. Well what about Price, or Zeller? They know Lecter, they know his mind-games.”

The men in question happened to be in the room at the time, and Will did not fail to notice the colour drain from both their faces simultaneously at his suggestion. Nor did Crawford.

“Lecter would eat them alive,” he’d said, softly, and both Price and Zeller had concurred without argument. 

“Give me a few more days,” Will had said, resigned. “If we haven’t caught this guy by then, I’ll go see Lecter.”

When Jack had gone, Price and Zeller exchanged looks of infinite relief, before turning to Will. 

“He really is obsessed with you, isn’t he?” Price said, wonderingly. 

Will shrugged. “I amuse him.”

“It’s more than that, man,” Zeller said. “What the hell did you do to him when you visited?”

Will didn’t answer, embarrassed, but he knew he wasn’t going to get away that easily. Not many people even knew he’d visited Lecter. The few who did were fascinated.

“Hey, we’re not going to judge you if you fucked him,” Price said encouragingly. “It’s unconventional, sure, but what relationship isn’t? Right Brian?”

It was Zeller’s turn to look embarrassed; his face turned beetroot, and he was suddenly very interested in something written on his clipboard.

Price had winked at Will. “Just be careful with Lecter. That man will eat your heart if you let him.”

“Literally,” Zeller muttered, before burying his nose in paperwork again.

Luckily for Will, he had not needed to break his promise to Jack. Two days later they’d had a breakthrough and raced to Dolarhyde’s house to find it in flames and Reba McClane screaming outside, and that would have been the end of that if Dolarhyde had really been dead. Will had returned to Florida and to Molly without needing to see Lecter again, but even so, he had known that something had changed in their relationship, changed irrevocably; Molly knew it too, and the unspoken knowledge lived with them like unwanted company in the house. After the absence from her, Molly had never looked better to Will. He had admired her from a painful distance, as one looks upon something soon to be lost. She tried to be good to him, and she assured him that she understood when he showed her the picture Jack had sent him of Dolarhyde’s next intended victims to explain why it had been worth it. He thought she probably did understand, but that didn’t change anything. Will had one more monster living behind his eyes, and that was apparently one too many for Molly. They had both known it was almost over.

Then Dolarhyde had shown up, following the address Lecter had communicated to him, and when Will woke in hospital days later, Molly was gone and he was in agony. It was at this time that Lecter’s final letter arrived, sent directly to the house in Sugarloaf; there was no need for Hannibal to pretend he didn’t know Will’s address now. How he had gotten it, Will was never sure… But it was Molly who opened the letter first this time, not Jack. And that, surely, had been Hannibal’s intention. 

Will would never know if Molly had already made up her mind to leave him, or if Lecter’s letter pushed her over the edge. He would not have been surprised either way.

_Dear Will,_  
_Here we are, you and I, languishing in our hospitals. You have your pain and I am without my books – the learned Dr Chilton has seen to that._  
_I’m certain you are displeased with me for passing on your home address to our mutual friend the Dragon. You only have yourself to blame. If you had come to visit me again as I suggested, I could have helped you to catch him a lot quicker, and wouldn’t have needed to take such action. It was uncivil of you not to write or visit. I know that you wanted to come, Will, but were afraid of what might happen. You were afraid I would ask you to fuck me again or vice versa in exchange for information – quid pro quo and all that – and you were afraid because you would have agreed. Or am I wrong about that? No, I don’t think so; I am very rarely wrong._  
_If you won’t visit, at least you have a new scar to remember me by._  
_And how is lovely Molly? She must be quite naïve or stupid to allow a monster like you into her bed. Does she know that you once murdered a man with your bare hands, dismembered him and displayed his corpse in a museum? No, probably not. And certainly you won’t have told her about your desire for me. Wouldn’t want to make her jealous, would we?_  
_When I escape, Will, I’ll cut out her heart and make you eat it raw. It will be so romantic._  
_I wish you a speedy convalescence and hope you won’t be very ugly._  
_I still think of you often._  
_Hannibal Lecter._

Will found the letter when he returned from hospital, on the floor where Molly had dropped it, just inside the front door. She was packed and long gone by then, as if she’d never been there, leaving nothing but her name in Lecter’s beautiful terrible handwriting.

And finally there had been the card, attached to a gift Will had received on Christmas day. The card bore a cheerful mass-produced picture of Santa Claus holding his belly and laughing jollily. Inside, Lecter had written only four words.

_For old time’s sake._

The ‘gift’ was a colostomy bag, sent from a hospital-supply house.

It had gone straight in the trash. The card he had kept. On closer inspection, he had discovered that Lecter somehow, probably using his thumbnail, had sliced open Santa’s stomach in the same pattern as Will’s scar. 

That had been five months ago. It was now late May. Hannibal had not written since. 

Now, sitting up in the middle of night with Molly gone and Winston at his feet, getting steadily drunk on cheap whiskey with his one picture of Hannibal Lecter clutched in his hand, Will finally allowed himself to cry.

Winston snuffled awake at the sound and whined softly. His wet nose nuzzled Will’s hand, before he jumped up onto the couch and put his head in Will’s lap, looking up at him with big, sad eyes. Will sniffed and managed a smile, putting down the picture of Hannibal to give the dog a good rub behind the ears. 

“Remember when we had an easy life, huh?” Will murmured, gulping down another mouthful of whiskey and wincing. “Before this fucking cannibal asshole. We had it okay, didn’t we? Things were going fine…”

Winston tilted his head to one side. Will nodded, hiccupping. 

“Yeah, alright, it wasn’t perfect. I was lonely. Do I wish I hadn’t met him…?” 

He paused to drain his glass while he thought about it. The part of Hannibal that lived in his head was stirring, smiling. 

“No,” Will said, sighing. “I’m glad I met him, I don’t think I would change that. I just wish…”

He didn’t know how to finish the sentence. There were an awful lot of things he wished were different between him and Hannibal. It was difficult to narrow it down to only one.

“I wish Molly had stayed,” he said finally, feebly, for it was only half-true. “She was good for me. It was nice to… to just have a normal relationship for a change. It was comfortable. No one had to get stabbed.”

He put his hand over his stomach, under the t-shirt, tracing the looping white scar with his thumb. He was angry to note the stiffening in his cock – it was absurd to be aroused at the very thought of the man who had gutted him to give him this scar, but he couldn’t help himself. He wished he could watch the tape of him fucking Hannibal. He wished Hannibal was here to put his hands over the wounds he’d inflicted and tell Will he was sorry, put his lips around his cock and show him how sorry he was. He wished there had been a scenario in which they could both live happily. He wished.

The empty glass dropped from his fingers and thumped onto the rug. A soft snore escaped his lips. Winston nestled Will’s hand, and fell asleep curled up against him. The small house was very quiet. Will dreamt of Hannibal. 

In the small hours of the morning there came a faint rustling from outside. Winston raised his head sleepily from Will’s lap and glanced in the direction of the sound. It came again. Will did not stir. Winston listened intently for several minutes, ears pricked up and eyes alert, but whatever it had been was gone.


	3. Chapter 3

_A soul hung up, as ‘twere, in chains,_   
_Of nerves, and arteries, and veins…_

 

Bright spring sunlight was flooding the house when the insistent knocking began. 

Will groaned and opened his eyes, then raised his forearm to shield them from the glare. His mouth tasted like warm garbage. The knocking continued, each thud reverberating in his sore head like a jackhammer. Mumbling to himself, he swung his legs off the couch and stumbled across the rug to the front door, kicking his dropped glass from the previous night and swearing. He yanked the door open, a sardonic comment poised on his lips, but the sight of Jack Crawford standing on the porch chased it away.

Jack looked very tired. He always looked tired these days, ever since Bella got sick, but this morning he looked like he hadn’t slept a wink. His eyes were as red-rimmed as Will supposed his own must look. But when he spoke, it was with the same calm authority as ever, as though he were a man who had seen all the shit and bile the world had to offer and nothing could surprise him anymore. Which was almost true. 

“You look like shit, Will.”

Will chuckled gruffly, which turned into a cough. “Hello to you too, Jack. You’re not looking so hot yourself.”

“Can I come in?”

They both knew it was not a request; Jack was going to come in, he was just being polite. Will raised an eyebrow and gestured languidly for Jack to follow him inside. 

As Will closed the door behind them, Jack surveyed the small room with a stab of sadness. Will had made no attempt to hide the bottles; he didn’t get many visitors, and even then he didn’t care enough about himself to play pretend. Will had always drank too much, even when he was settled with Molly and seemed content, but things had gotten worse since he came home from the hospital. Jack found himself unable to be judgemental of Will’s behaviour, though it pained him to see a good man and a friend waste himself to the bottle. But he understood why Will did it. He did it to drown out the psychopaths in his head.

“It smells like a brewery in here,” Jack said, picking up the dropped glass and setting it on an end table. “You stink, Will, when was the last time you showered?”

Will smiled thinly and pulled one of the curtains half-closed. “It’s been a while.”

Jack perched on the sofa. Will took a seat across from him, rubbing sleep from his eyes, wishing he was wearing something more substantial than day-old boxer shorts and a sweaty t-shirt. He did not fail to notice the pity in Jack’s eyes.

“How’s Bella?” he asked, perhaps a little cruelly. He could not stand Jack looking at him like that, like he was a sad lost dog that lay dying at the side of the road.

Jack looked down at his hands. “She’s… She’s holding on. She’s a fighter. Some days she’s lucid and can move around a little, and she seems almost like her old self again. Some days she can barely breathe, and the pain is so bad she would be screaming if she could muster the breath.” He swallowed. “Those second days are getting more and more frequent.”

Will felt Jack’s grief moving over him like needles. “I’m sorry, Jack.”

Jack sighed. “Not as sorry as I am.”

There was a silence, not uncomfortable but heavy with sorrow and the as-yet unspoken thing Jack had dragged his ass down to Florida to say. Will glanced at his glass and thought about pouring himself a drink, but he knew Jack would disapprove. But Jack wouldn’t be here if not for something serious, and Will was sure he did not want to be sober when he heard it.

“How’s Reba doing?” he said, to break the silence.

Reba McClane was the woman Francis Dolarhyde had fallen in love with. He had taken advantage of her blindness to fake his own death, setting his house ablaze with Reba inside. Will liked Reba a lot, and he understood her trauma uncomfortably well. Reba was horrified that a monster could fall in love with her, terrified that it made her a monster too. Will had comforted her as best he could, telling her that it was the part of Dolarhyde that was still human that had loved her and tried to survive for her while the Dragon ate him alive, and thinking of Hannibal all the while as he said it. 

“Reba’s fine,” Jack said, visibly grateful to move the conversation along from his own private hall of grief. “She contacts the bureau now and then to enquire after you.”

“What do you tell her?”

Jack smiled. “That you’re a grouchy drunk lazing away his retirement on the beach. Am I wrong?”

Will laughed again, easing into his old routine with Jack. Things had been tense between them for a while now, since Lecter’s trial and Will’s decision to retire, and it had only gotten worse since the stabbing. Jack could not help feeling responsible, even if Will didn’t blame him – it was, after all, Jack’s fault that Will had gotten involved in the first place, the last time he had shown up at his door like this with photographs of two dead families and a plea he knew Will couldn’t refuse.

Even if Will didn’t blame him, Molly certainly had. Jack had not repeated to Will what Molly had said to him in the hospital waiting room while Will was in the operating theatre, and he never would, but her words still snagged in his mind like a barb wire snare whenever he saw Will’s ugly scar.

_You’re looking well, Jack. You let that monster mutilate his mind and now his face. It should have been you. God, why couldn’t you just leave us alone?_

He looked at Will, his friend, a quiet curious man who liked to fish and keep to himself and hated thinking about murder, hated it, but did it because Jack asked him to, because he was saving lives, and had almost lost his own several times in the process. He looked at Will’s scarred face and lonely life, and tried to assure himself that he had made the right decisions. 

But a family was still alive who would have been butchered, and who knew how many more besides them. Jack felt a little better. No matter how badly he might have broken Will, in his mind, it would always be the right decision.

“Why are you here, Jack?” Will said, after another silence. “I don’t read the papers or watch the news, so if it’s one of your monsters, you’ll need to fill me in.”

Jack paled. “You really haven’t heard?”

Will felt gooseflesh break out across the back of the neck. He sat a little straighter. “Heard what? What’s going on?”

“Hannibal Lecter escaped custody just under thirty-six hours ago. He’s in the wind.”

It took a minute for the words to register in Will’s hungover brain. They made no sense to him. Hannibal Lecter could not be in the wind. Hannibal Lecter was spending the rest of his existence in the basement of the BSHCI. Hannibal Lecter could not be free. It was preposterous.

Realisation hit him like a brick to the gut. He felt winded. 

His mouth was very dry when he managed to speak. “W… When? How?”

“Night before last. Around one in the morning, Lecter began complaining to the night staff of heart palpitations. They ignored him at first but then he collapsed. He was handcuffed to a trolley and taken for an EKG, but he’d gotten hold of a piece of paperclip at some point and managed to pick his cuffs. It was late, the staff was light. He got lucky.”

_Lucky_ , Will thought. Hannibal had probably been biding his time for months, waiting for just the right moment. He was too cunning to rely on luck. 

“How many dead?” Will asked, biting his knuckle. 

“Six,” Jack said. “Both attending nurses. He stabbed one in the neck with using the handcuffs and the other… Christ, he ate her face, Will. Broke her jaw to get at her tongue. She was still alive when he left her. She died in the hospital a few hours ago.”

He paused, taking a deep breath through his nose. Will had gone very white.

“He got an orderly and two security guards on the way out,” Jack continued, hands gripping his knees as though to hold himself together. “Killed a stranger for his clothes and car – we found that car in a ditch on the outskirts of Baltimore, we don’t know where he went from there. We know he stole some equipment from the medical ward – scalpels and drugs mostly – and he took handcuffs and tranquilizers from the guards he killed. He was in a hurry so he didn’t display the bodies but he, uh… he took some…”

“He made himself a packed lunch,” Will said flatly, unsmiling.

Jack ran a hand over his mouth, his rough chin. He hadn’t slept since the call came in about Lecter. All the usual precautions were in place – road blocks, all-points bulletins, public hotlines which were already generating hysteria-fuelled false sightings and outright hoaxes – but he didn’t hold out much hope that they would work. Jack knew how intelligent Lecter was. He knew they had been lucky to catch him once; this time they’d need nothing short of a miracle. 

“Lecter knows your home address,” Jack said, finally burying the hatchet. “I need you to come with me to Virginia, we’ll get you a protection detail. You’re welcome to stay with me if you’d prefer.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“ _He knows where you live_ , Will,” Jack said, firmly. He had predicted Will would be difficult; he was stubborn by nature. “We’re compiling a list of everyone Lecter might bear a grudge against, and you are top of that list.”

“That list includes you, Jack.”

“I know that. It also includes Alana Bloom, who I know would feel a lot safer if you were close by to talk to.”

“Don’t try to guilt-trip me – Hannibal won’t touch Alana and you know it. She hasn’t caused him any grievance since he was caught. And she argued against the death penalty at his trial, remember?”

“I remember.” Jack had still not entirely forgiven Alana for that.

“He would consider it rude to go after her. In his eyes, she’s already paid her due.”

“So, by definition, _you_ have caused him grievance since he was caught.”

Will grinned humourlessly and stood up, swiping his glass and a half-empty bottle of whiskey from the end table and pouring himself a generous measure, ignoring Jack’s frown. “You’re just dying to know what I did to him when I visited the hospital, aren’t you? You’ve read some of the letters he sent to me; you will have made assumptions.” 

“There’s been a lot of whispering about it around the bureau – I’d like to hear the truth come from you.”

“I fucked him, Jack,” Will said, shrugging and downing half his drink in one motion. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “I got him in a straightjacket, I put a gag in his mouth to shut him up, and I fucked him. Are you happy?”

Jack’s gaze was unflinching. Evidently, he had come to expect about as much.

“So he’s mad that you fucked him?”

Will laughed. “Oh, no, he couldn’t have been happier about that. He’s mad because I only did it once.”

Jack rubbed his eyes. He was too tired to deal with this today.

“Do you think he’ll come for you? You caught him, after all, and he wasn’t happy about that. And now… this.”

“He won’t come after me.”

“And you know this how?”

“He just got out, Jack. He’s not going to risk his freedom for an old grudge – you think he doesn’t know that you’re here now, warning me of the danger? He’ll assume I’m heavily guarded, that he won’t get near me. He’ll be halfway to Mexico by now. If I’m very lucky, he’ll start sending me fucking love letters again, to taunt me.”

“Be that as it may, I’d still feel a lot better if you come back to Virginia with me. Even if you’re right and Lecter’s trying to leave the country, he might try to send someone else your way, like he did with Dolarhyde.”

“No, he’s not going to do that again. He wouldn’t want anyone else to have that pleasure, not now that he could do it with his own hands.”

“That sounds like another reason to leave, Will.”

Will finished his drink and poured another. Jack frowned, but said nothing.

“Let’s say he does decide to make a stop at my door on his way to the border,” Will said. “I sleep with a shotgun under my bed. This time I won’t hesitate to put two rounds in the bastard’s head before he can stick another knife in me. That might be the only way to bring him down. If he gets out of the country, we’ll probably never hear from him again. He won’t risk getting caught again, not now that he’s had the experience of confinement. He’ll disappear completely. You know that – you might not be willing to admit it, but you know.”

“Yeah, I know; that’s what I’m afraid of. If you insist on staying, at least let me put a protection detail on your house.”

“Lecter would spot them a mile away, and he’d either keep his distance or kill them all. The only way you’re going to get him, in this scenario at least, is if you make him think it’s a fair fight between the two of us. But he won’t come.”

Jack surveyed Will, frowning. “He won’t come, or you don’t want him to come.”

Will shrugged again. “Both.”

“Do you think he’d try to… I mean, if he comes, do you think he might… In his letters…”

“I don’t think Hannibal desires me sexually anymore, no,” Will said, without expression. “He’s real mad I didn’t visit again. If he comes for me, it’ll be to put a knife in me. Teach me a lesson about ignoring him.”

“You make him sound more like a petulant child than… Whatever he is.”

“What he _is_ , Jack, is a man on his way to disappearing,” Will said, finishing his drink and glancing at the door. “So I don’t know what you’re doing on my beach in the backend of nowhere, when you should be out making sure that doesn’t happen.”

“If you had a phone, I wouldn’t need to make house calls like this,” Jack said, standing up. Will’s body language was making it very clear that he was no longer welcome on this particular beach. “Just promise you’ll check in with me every couple of days, let me know you’re not dead. If you get wind of anything, anything at all, or if you change your mind, you call.”

“I will.”

“And if Lecter shows up-”

“I’ll kill him,” Will said, opening the front door and glancing out down the dusty road beyond the house. “You don’t need to worry about that.”

“Just take care of yourself.” 

“Get some sleep, Jack. Give Bella my love. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.”

Jack shook his friend’s hand and headed for his rental car, hearing the door close behind him and Will’s dogs begin making noise inside. He thrust his hands deep in his pockets, resisting the urge to look back, though he felt certain that Will was watching him from the window. As he drove away, he tried to make himself believe Will’s assurances. He could not.

Jack Crawford was very worried. 

Will’s love letters from Hannibal Lecter had been clearly visible on the floor beside Jack’s feet.


	4. Chapter 4

_… it seem’d to bless_  
_Itself in me; how could I less_  
_Than love it? Oh, I cannot be_  
_Unkind t’ a beast that loveth me._

 

Will did not sleep a wink the night after Jack’s visit. 

He spent the rest of the day working through his hangover, fixing a broken rail on the porch, fiddling with a lure at his desk, taking the dogs for a long walk on the beach when he felt up to it. As darkness fell, he settled in his chair on the porch with his gun strapped to his hip, the dogs at his feet, pretending that he wasn’t waiting for Hannibal. He itched for a drink, but he knew it was a bad idea. If Hannibal came, he would need all his wits about him.

But Hannibal wouldn’t come.

He chewed his lip, staring out across the beach. A thin crescent moon hung low over the water, glinting like a thousand tiny eyes on the slow-moving waves. He thought about skinny-dipping with Molly in the shallows, her wet skin silver in the moonlight as she tilted her face back to look at the stars. He was surprised to find that he felt nothing. The memory was like something seen once in an old film, long ago, half remembered. It did not belong to this life. 

He hoped Molly was happy.

His thoughts strayed back irresistibly to Hannibal. He imagined him rising from the water like Venus, naked and glistening, crossing the beach toward the house, unhurried, palms open at his sides. Will shifted his weight in the chair, feeling himself becoming hard. He was very aware of the gun at his hip. Would he really shoot Hannibal if he came? With Jack sitting across for him, his hatred for Dr Lecter washing over Will’s mind in great destructive waves, Will had felt confident that he would. He had imagined the solid feeling of the gun in his hand, the look which would pass over Hannibal’s face in the split second before the bullet struck. He saw his hands on the body, Hannibal’s eyes open and blankly staring, horribly human in death. He thought he would like to display the body, he owed the Ripper as much, though Jack would not be happy if he did. At the very least, he would like to take something. A piece of Dr Lecter, to remember him by. Perhaps he would even eat him. Honour him. 

At the time, the vision had been very clear. Now he was not so sure.

His eyes scanned the beach again. _Hannibal in the ocean, naked and glistening, skin silver in the moonlight as he tilts his face back to look at the stars._ Will closed his eyes, swallowing thickly. He was angry with himself, but the very air seemed to sing with thoughts of Hannibal. He could hear nothing else. _Hannibal crossing the beach toward him; Hannibal’s hands on him; Hannibal beneath him on the bed –_

He stayed up on the porch with one hand near his gun and the other alternately petting the dogs and turning the pages in a thick book whose contents he was barely aware of, until the first red light of the dawn set the ocean on fire and he felt he could breathe easy once more. He fed the dogs and napped until mid-morning, then set to work in the garage to keep his mind busy, humming tunelessly to himself, the gun still strapped to his hip beneath an open plaid shirt. In the evening he fished for a time, then managed to sleep. By the next day, he felt almost like himself again. He walked into town to use the phone outside the grocery store, checking in with Jack as he’d promised. Jack seemed to share his belief that Lecter would have come by now if he was going to, and was likely out of the country already; they were following a lead that suggested he was south of the border. Glumly, Jack expressed the hope that Lecter had fallen foul of someone trying to buy a fake passport, and might be riddled with bullets in a landfill somewhere. Will agreed it was a possibility, although they both knew Lecter probably had a stash of documentation and cash secreted away somewhere for precisely this eventuality. If he got out of the country and resisted killing again for a while, they might never see him again. 

Will hated to admit that the thought made him severely unhappy, and not for the right reasons. 

When he and Jack hung up, Will bought some groceries and walked slowly back to the house, the dogs racing ahead of him, oblivious. The day was uncomfortably hot and he was sticky and tired before long. Depositing his bag on the kitchen counter, he stripped off and headed for the shower, avoiding the bathroom mirror as he passed. He turned his face up to the cool water and closed his eyes, dreaming. _Hannibal stepping into the shower, Hannibal’s arms around him, Hannibal’s body against his…_

He thought he heard a sound from the dogs and turned the water off to listen. Nothing. He stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around his waist. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, and quickly turned his face away. 

“Hey. What is it guys?” he called to the dogs, opening the bathroom door. “Are you-”

The question died in his throat. 

Hannibal Lecter stood on the other side of the door. 

It seemed to Will that they stared at each other for a very long time, but in reality, it could not have been more than a second. Then Hannibal lunged at him, knocking Will back into the bathroom and onto the floor, one hand on Will’s throat and pressing down, Will’s fingers scrabbling against his chest, tearing his shirt, nails drawing a line of blood from Hannibal’s neck. The towel slipped free as they struggled, and Hannibal’s face broke into a smile at the sight of Will’s nakedness, momentarily distracted; Will jammed an elbow into Hannibal stomach and he drew back in surprise, relinquishing his grip enough to allow Will to roll onto his front and scrabble away, damp skin slipping on the tiles. He thought of his gun, but it was with the rest of his clothes, on the bedroom floor where he had dropped them, and Hannibal was between him and the door. He got to his knees and snatched his razor from the sink, but Hannibal knocked it from his hand, forcing Will’s face onto the tiles and pinning him down, panting. He had evidently lost some weight in the hospital, but he was still the bigger man. Will continued to struggle, but he knew Hannibal had won.

“Aren’t you going to say hello?” Hannibal asked, a little breathless. 

“Hello, get the fuck off me.”

Hannibal tutted, twisting Will’s wrist further behind his body; Will cried out, feeling his shoulder crack.

“Rude, William, very rude” Hannibal muttered. Will could hear the smirk in his voice. “What were you going to do with that razor?”

“Slit your fucking throat.”

“Would you really?” Hannibal said, sounding deeply amused. “Yes, perhaps you would. Naughty boy – that is _not_ how we treat a houseguest. We’ll have to teach you some manners.”

He grabbed Will by the ankles and dragged him across the tiles and out of the room, Will trying to grab at the toilet, the door, anything to hold onto, fingers slipping; across the bedroom floor now, and Hannibal lifted him up and threw him onto the bed as if he weighed nothing at all, and then he was upon him. Straddling Will, Hannibal grabbed his hands and forced them above his head; Will felt the cold clasp of handcuffs around his wrists, and then Hannibal was sitting up, brushing hair from his forehead, smiling. He had handcuffed Will’s wrists to the bedframe. 

“You wouldn’t visit, Will,” Hannibal said. “I warned you that I would come to you instead.”

“Crawford knew you’d come here,” Will snarled, struggling against his restraints. “He’s got someone watching the house.”

“You’re a good liar Will; I think maybe you almost believe that yourself. But I’ve been watching the house for days. I saw Jack Crawford visit, and leave. He hasn’t posted anyone here to look after you, with or without your consent. I wonder why that is.”

“He thought you might come, that I might lure you out of hiding. If I don’t call to check in every couple of hours, he’ll know something’s wrong – he’ll send someone.”

“You called Jack Crawford earlier today, for the first time,” Hannibal said, patiently. “I imagine we have at least two or three days before he will become concerned. Jack Crawford has enough on his mind as it is – he will be following the false trail I left toward Mexico, and there will be other hoaxes to keep him busy. You could be in pieces before he thinks to check on you again.”

“You won’t kill me,” Will said. 

Hannibal tilted his head. “Won’t I?”

“You didn’t risk your neck coming here just to kill me. You could be out of the country by now, but you came here instead. You wanted to see me.”

Hannibal put a hand on Will’s cheek. Will jerked his face away, but Hannibal grabbed it with both hands and held it still. One thumb stroked Will’s cheekbone.

Will was surprised to see tears brimming in Hannibal’s eyes.

“You wouldn’t visit,” he repeated. His voice was quiet, rough. 

Will swallowed, giving one final futile wriggle against his restraints before falling limp. Hannibal felt very warm on top of him. He was painfully aware of his nakedness. 

“You don’t get to play victim, Hannibal. You stabbed me in the stomach, remember?”

“That didn’t stop you visiting the first time. You visited because you wanted to, and you wanted to visit again but you stopped yourself. Why?”

“You are _bad for me_. I’m trying to… To piece together my life, from the fragments you left behind. I visited you once, to… To close the book on that chapter of my life. To say goodbye.”

“That’s not true. You know it’s not true, and you’ve been lying to yourself ever since. You visited once to gauge your feelings about me. You didn’t visit again because you were afraid that those feelings were genuine.”

“And what feelings would those be, Dr Lecter?”

“You love me, Will,” Hannibal said. “You feel deep love for me, and you like to pretend it’s only my feelings that you’re empathising with, but you know they are your own, and that frightens you.”

“That implies that you feel genuine love for me.”

“I do,” Hannibal said, simply. “I told you that when you visited, but you chose to ignore it. I would have told you again and again if you would have listened. For you, I would have endured that bleak prison cell and Chilton’s torments for a hundred years if only you would have acted upon your feelings. But you didn’t, and here we are.”

“Here we are,” Will repeated.

“Together,” Hannibal said, his eyes very bright in the dimness of the room. He glanced around the surroundings, the littering of dirty clothes on the floor, the drawn curtains, the empty bottles on the nightstand, before settling on Will’s face once more. “I have not felt like myself for some time, since you left and wouldn’t come back. Chilton has worked very hard to break me. I knew that to stay in that cell was to die, spiritually if not physically. I chose salvation instead. I came back to you. I came back to myself. I came home.” 

There was a silence. Will found he could not meet Hannibal’s eye. He turned his face away and swallowed down the sadness that was brimming at the back of his throat. He could feel Hannibal’s piercing stare on his face, as though the man was looking right through him, into his soul. He was frightened of what Hannibal might see there.

“Would you really have killed me if I hadn’t caught you off guard?” Hannibal said. “I saw you sitting up at night with your gun. Would you have shot me before I had a chance to speak, before your true feelings were able to overwhelm you?”

Will said nothing. He wriggled slightly under Hannibal’s warm body. The way he was straddling him, Hannibal could not have failed to notice that Will was becoming aroused. Will felt his cheeks beginning to flush.

“I don’t think you would have killed me, but I cannot be sure,” Hannibal answered himself, thoughtfully. “You are unpredictable when you are upset. Luckily for both of us, I was able to put you in a position in which you could not do something you might regret. Well, perhaps not luckily for you. For now I am able to do things which you might regret.” 

Will felt his heartrate pick up. “What are you going to do to me?” he said, hearing the slight tremble in his voice. He was uncertain if he was excited or afraid. 

Hannibal wet his lips, examining Will thoughtfully. “I’m going to fuck you,” he said, with the rich, measured assurance of a doctor prescribing a treatment to a particularly nervous patient. “Your visit gave me ideas, and I’ve had many others since. Solitary confinement will do that to a man. At some point, when you feel up to it, I should like you to fuck me again. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I want to know every part of you, Will, and that includes the part that possessed you to dominate me, that desires control and relishes in viewing me helpless. And of course, it is a way for you to know every part of me. Before that, I will need to remind you of your love for me – our relationship cannot progress while you are weighed down with this tedious denial.”

He stroked Will’s cheek again, before winding his fingers around Will’s curls and giving his hair a sharp tug, jerking his head back. He lowered his mouth to Will’s exposed throat and kissed greedily, sucking and licking. Then he drew back his lips and dragged his teeth across Will’s skin. Will’s breath caught in his throat; he swallowed hard, feeling Hannibal’s teeth dig into his Adam’s apple, his hot breath on Will’s skin. His cheeks were rough with days-old stubble, as were Will’s; his body smelled of dirt and sweat and smoke, musky but somehow sweet. He drew back a fraction, until his face was only inches from Will’s. His pupils were dilated in excitement; his eyes looked black. 

“First things first, though, I need to punish you. I need to teach you never to ignore me again.”

Lithe as a panther, he slid off Will and crossed the room, crouching beside a black duffle bag by the door and rummaging inside. He removed a length of rope and returned to the bed, ignoring Will’s kicking, holding him still while he looped the rope around Will’s ankles and pulled them tight together, before tying the rope to the frame of the bed. He allowed just enough slack to allow Will to bend his knees halfway. He smiled down at his work before returning to his bag, his back to Will. For the first time since the initial shock of seeing his face, Will had the chance to really look at Hannibal. He was dressed humbly enough in dark jeans which flattered his firm backside, and a loose t-shirt under a faded leather jacket. He was definitely thinner than Will remembered, and there was a gauntness to his face which Will had never seen before. Will wondered what had been done to him, what Hannibal had meant when he said Chilton tried to break him. He told himself he didn’t care. But he knew that wasn’t true.

 

“I brought a few things,” Hannibal said. “I have been in the neighbourhood for a few days, considering how I should like to face you. I came straight here from the hospital.”

“Did you hurt my dogs?”

Hannibal glanced over his shoulder, frowning in distaste. “I would not harm innocent animals. If you heard them make a sound, it was in greeting. Your dogs like me.”

“They like you because you feed them. You’ve fooled a lot of people that way.”

Hannibal turned his face back to his bag, but not before Will saw his frown twist into a smirk. “I imagine some of my former dinner guests got a pleasant surprise when the details came out during my trial. I wrote to a few, but I didn’t receive any responses. Discourteous of them.”

“Yes, of _them_.”

“You wouldn’t write back either. A small note would have sufficed.”

“No. I was trying to move on with my life.”

“Move on, yes. And how is the lovely Molly?”

Will swallowed. “You know she’s gone.”

“I know. I wonder if she got my Christmas card.”

Will closed his eyes. “What did you send her?”

“The same card I sent you, nothing more. I congratulated her on her good judgement abandoning you to your pain, and wished her all the best. She did not respond.”

“If I find out you sent her anything else, I swear to God I’ll kill you.”

Hannibal stood up sharply and turned to face Will. In his hands was something Will recognised very well.

“You should have written back. It was unspeakably rude of you, Will. But since you enjoy your silence so much, I shall prolong it for you.”

“Don’t you fucking dare.” Will began to struggle as Hannibal advanced, jerking his face away and pressing his lips shut tight. Hannibal climbed onto the bed beside him and straddled him again, holding him still, grabbing his chin and forcing Will to look at him. In his other hand he dangled the ball gag before Will’s eyes.

“Open your mouth for me now.”

Will looked Hannibal in the eye, feeling himself trembling a little beneath the man, his breathing quickening. He did not open his mouth. Hannibal sighed.

“William, open your mouth. We’ve been through this before, when roles were reversed – you know I can make you open your mouth, as you made me, so why not spare yourself the charade? If you start behaving yourself and obeying commands now, I shall perhaps spare you some of the punishments I have planned. Perhaps. Now open your mouth, my love.”

Will understood that relinquishing control around Dr Lecter was a slippery slope. He also knew that Hannibal was right – all he would need to do was pinch Will’s nose and he’d have to open his mouth to breathe fairly quickly. But, more than that, he felt an irresistible pull of desire toward allowing Hannibal to dominate him. It was something he had fantasised about since his first meeting with the man and, lying here with his hands chained above his head, he was becoming hard at the mere thought of what might be done to him. His naked body felt very small and vulnerable beneath Hannibal. He could only imagine what medieval torments Hannibal might have concocted for him in his months of solitude. Their relationship was founded on pleasure and pain, and the two were not mutually exclusive. Will thrilled at the thought of what Hannibal might do. 

“Open your mouth,” Hannibal repeated, softly, the hand on Will’s face gentle now, loving. 

Slowly, Will parted his lips, feeling a shiver run through him. Hannibal pressed the gag into his mouth and fastened the strap behind his head, his eyes never leaving Will’s. His fingers lingered in Will’s hair, stroking his damp curls. He traced Will’s parted lips with one finger. 

 

“Beautiful,” he murmured.

Will blinked up at him, already feeling the tension building in his jaw. Submitting this soon had been a mistake. But he couldn’t help himself.

Hannibal climbed off him again, though he seemed reluctant. With one finger, he traced the curves of Will’s body, along his clavicle, his ribs, down to his navel, his face intent as if committing the feel of Will to memory. He stroked the white scar across his stomach, before his fingers slipped lower and he took Will’s hardening cock in his hand. Will moaned faintly, body twisting on the bed, hips turning toward Hannibal as his hand moved slowly up and down Will’s length, excruciatingly gentle, barely touching at all. Hannibal smiled and leaned over Will, lowering his face to Will’s chest; he inhaled deeply, his tongue creeping out to move over Will’s nipple, before slipping his lips around it and kissing it, sucking it, his hand still teasing Will’s cock. 

For a moment, Will entirely forgot where he was. He forgot about the handcuffs and rope, about the tension beginning to build in his jaw. He forget that Hannibal was currently top of the FBI’s Most Wanted list, and that he was profoundly dangerous. He didn’t care. Hannibal was here, Hannibal was here at last. They could have been in Hannibal’s old office in Baltimore, as Will had fantasised about a lifetime ago, or in a hotel room in Europe. All the badness that had come between them didn’t seem to matter. All that mattered was that _Hannibal was here_. With him. 

Very suddenly, Hannibal drew back, letting go of Will and folding his hands in front of his midriff, observing coolly. Will blinked up at him, a soft keening sound escaping him to his embarrassment. The corners of Hannibal’s mouth crept up into his small smile.

 

“I’m going to take a shower. It has been a while since I’ve had the opportunity, and even longer since I’ve had the opportunity to do so without constant supervision. And then I think I will have a bite to eat. You can lie here and think about me for a while. I need to remind you how much you miss me when I’m gone.”

Will attempted a mild struggle against his restraints, managing little more than to rock from side to side, his shoulder blades aching from the strain. He tried to speak through his gag and proceeded to dribble down his chin. 

“I won’t be too long,” Hannibal murmured, sounding amused. He slipped his jacket from his shoulders and folded it over his arm, setting it on the dresser. When he pulled the t-shirt over his head, Will moaned at the sight of his bare chest; despite the weight loss, Hannibal had evidently been working out during his imprisonment, and he looked fantastic. His fingers moved to unbutton his pants and then paused. He considered Will for a moment, before returning to his bag and taking another item out. It was a silk tie, not unlike the one that Will had brought with him when he visited the hospital. 

“I don’t think you deserve to see me yet,” Hannibal said, resting the fabric over Will’s eyes and knotting the tie behind his head. “All good things to those who wait.”

Will made a small sound as his vision was blocked out, twisting his head to try and shift the obstruction, but it was tied tight. He heard the whisper of fabric as Hannibal slipped out of his pants and briefs, heard the man sigh. Light fingers brushed Will’s chest again; he shuddered, whining. Then the bathroom door opening and closing, the muffled sounds of the shower being turned on. 

Will lay still for a moment, breathing heavily. A thin sliver of light made it under his blindfold, but he could see nothing at all. The muscles in his jaw twitched, desperately trying to find comfort from the mild but relentless ache of the gag in his mouth; his chin was damp with cooling saliva. He twisted his wrists, but the handcuffs allowed little slack and the movement only made his arms hurt. Once before, in what seemed like another life, he had broken his thumb to slip a pair of handcuffs and escape custody. Little good that would do him now, not that it was an experience he wanted to repeat. Even if he somehow wormed out of his restraints, Hannibal would not let him get far. He found that the thought did not bother him very much. Or at all, really.

He shifted his body slightly. The sheets were bunched up beneath him; he had not made the bed that morning. The drawn curtains kept most of the sun out, but the room was still hot, and his skin was becoming slick with sweat. He was uncomfortably hard and despite the ache in his muscles, his whole body seemed to be bristling with anticipation. He pictured Hannibal rolling him onto his front and parting his legs as he slipped himself into Will, and heard himself moan at the thought. He could no longer tell if he was frightened or not. Very reasonable to be frightened. But, oh, the possibilities of what could happen.

The rushing of water from the bathroom lasted a very long time. Will tried to count the seconds to keep himself occupied, but he was frequently distracted by his own concupiscent fantasies. Hannibal seemed to be in the shower for at least a half hour. When the water was turned off, Will heard him moving around in the bathroom for a time, humming to himself, the sound of the faucet running. Eventually, the door opened. Will caught a whiff of rich almond soap, of sandalwood and lavender, labdanum. Hannibal must have brought his own products; Will knew for a fact that nothing in his bathroom smelled that good. The smell intensified as Hannibal crossed the room; Will held his breath as he drew close, but he passed by without a word. The bedroom door opened and closed. Will heard the dogs make noise in greeting, and Hannibal acknowledge them. After a few minutes, the sound of a knife on the chopping board, then the sizzle of oil in a pan. Hannibal was singing to himself in French.

Will felt himself growing desperate. He struggled furiously with his restraints for a time, feeling the handcuffs dig into his wrists and the rope scrape his ankles and not caring. He wanted to follow Hannibal into the kitchen and have him up against a counter. No, that was wrong – he should want to get to the kitchen for the knives, and carve Hannibal up before he could do the same to Will. He should want that, except he didn’t, not at all. He wanted to take these same handcuffs which bound him now and cuff Hannibal’s wrists behind his back, bend him over and take him. He wanted to wind his fingers through Hannibal’s hair and bite his neck while he fucked him. He wanted to touch and kiss every part of him, eat him, drink him, love him, make much of him – 

His hips twisted back and forth on the bed in his distress, knees bending as far as the rope could allow, writhing against the sheets. He was still writhing when the bedroom door opened again. He fell still, his breathing laboured. There was a long silence. He couldn’t tell where Hannibal was in the room, or if he was in the room at all; Hannibal was capable of moving as silently as a phantom when he wanted to. Then the hand clasped his throat and Hannibal was straddling him again, his lips moving over Will’s rough cheeks, one hand cupping his face while the other pressed down on his throat. Will felt the blood rush to his head; he made some choked, breathless sounds, but still he pushed up his hips and pressed himself harder against Hannibal, rubbing against him, letting him know how ready he was. Hannibal’s kisses moved down his jaw; his teeth teased Will’s earlobe, forceful enough to leave it stinging when he let go. His hand relinquished its grip on Will’s throat and Will inhaled a great breath through his nose, his chest heaving. He could tell without needing to see that Hannibal was smirking.

“I have missed you so much,” Hannibal breathed, dragging his nails down Will’s pectorals. “Did you miss me? And don’t lie now.”

Will nodded quickly, his breathing still laboured. Hannibal chuckled.

“None of this _theatricality_ would have been necessary if you had only visited. I would have let you do anything to me, anything at all.”

Will moaned, rubbing against Hannibal again. He could feel that Hannibal was clothed after his shower, and he wanted more than anything to have his hands free, to rip the garments from Hannibal’s skin and touch him all over.

 

“Do you want me to fuck you now?” Hannibal murmured, very close to Will’s ear.

Will nodded eagerly, writhing beneath Hannibal. That dark chuckle again. 

“Tough,” Hannibal said, and climbed off him. Will whined, rattling his handcuffs. He heard Hannibal crossing the room, and then silence. A minute passed. Will strained to hear where Hannibal was standing, but he could not. 

Without warning, a bolt of pain shot through his left side, just under his ribs. He cried out incoherently, body jerking away from the unknown source of pain, but it came again, on his calf this time, a sharp sudden jolt; his knees jerked, the rope digging into his ankles. As the initial surprise passed, he realised what was causing the pain – it was a cattle prod. His skin stung where he had been shocked. He wriggled, trying again to shift the blindfold from his eyes so he could see where Hannibal was, when the next shock would come. Another long, excruciating silence, and then a shock on his other side, against his buttock. He groaned, drooling. Another three shocks, against his abdomen, then just below clavicle, against the tender sole of his foot, and he was shaking his head violently from side to side. It was not unbearable, but it was not pleasant either. 

“Have you had enough?” Hannibal asked. 

Will nodded.

A moment passed, and then Hannibal was pulling the tie free from his eyes and Will squinted against the light, before hungrily focussing on Hannibal. He had shaved and fixed his hair, and had dressed in a loose silk robe over his black briefs. Will blinked up at him, trying to make himself angry that Hannibal had hurt him and finding himself utterly unable to. Hannibal tilted his head, smiled.

“You struck me with a paddle; I’ve shocked you with a cattle prod,” he said. “Now we’re even. For now at least.”

He glanced at Will’s erection. “Sex between us was never going to be painless, was it? We are both too strong-willed for that, too keen for dominance. My remarkable boy. Would you love me if I didn’t hurt you so?”

He cupped Will’s face with one hand, and touched the cattle prod to his armpit with the other, his smile widening as Will jerked, his feet thumping against the bed. 

“I would love you even as you tore me to pieces,” he continued, stroking Will’s rough cheek with his thumb. “But I hope for both our sakes that it doesn’t come to that.”

Will made a small sound, twisting his body as best he could toward Hannibal, his eyes wide and loving. Hannibal raised the cattle prod again and looked at Will expectantly. Will rolled his eyes, but nodded. Hannibal smiled. He looked up and down Will’s body, considering, wetting his lips. Then he pressed the tip of the prod high up on Will’s thigh, far too close to his genitals for comfort. Will tensed, trying not to let Hannibal see how much it hurt, though he knew Hannibal would enjoy seeing it. Hannibal shocked the other leg in the same place. Will moaned this time, his eyelids fluttering. A bead of sweat ran from his hairline down the side of his cheek. 

Seeming satisfied, Hannibal placed the cattle prod on the dresser and sat down beside Will on the bed. Reaching behind Will’s head, he undid the strap of the gag with deft fingers and slipped it out of Will’s mouth, wiping away the string of saliva that came with it. Will flexed his jaw and wet his lips, as Hannibal put a hand on his cheek again.

“You are so beautiful,” he said, his voice very serious.

Will turned his face away, swallowing. “Not anymore.”

Hannibal’s fingers traced the scar Dolarhyde’s knife had left. “You are more beautiful now than ever. Your scars are works of art. They tell the story of you and I, and everything that has come between us.”

“That’s a real pretty way of saying you sent a man to murder me.”

Hannibal raised his hands, the sleeves of his robe falling back to reveal the old red scars which ran up his wrists. “It is a common experience which binds us,” he said, touching one of his scars, sighing. “To love a person completely is to succumb to extremes of emotion. To feel anger towards a person we love who has betrayed us, therefore, we open ourselves up to the possibility of the most extreme of rage. You felt this when you sent Matthew Brown to kill me. I felt this when I sent Francis Dolarhyde to kill you. Love can be irrational, and dangerous. But it is the most human of emotions, and it is beautiful.”

“I don’t think you’re capable of love,” Will murmured. “And I’m not sure if you’re human at all.”

“You don’t believe that,” Hannibal said, stroking Will’s scar again. “If I did not love you, I would not have come here. I would not have risked my freedom and perhaps my life to see you. The image of you that I preserved in my mind was the only thing that sustained me when the grotesque reality of my incarcerated life became unbearable to me, and even that could not compare to the beauty of you that I knew lay beyond my reach. I came here because being separate from you has begun to feel like being separate from a piece of myself.”

Will met his eyes again, his lip trembling. “I sometimes feel like you’re… moving beneath my skin. Like it’s your blood inside of me. And I thought it was just the thing I do, letting killers into my head… They live inside me, Garett Jacob Hobbs, and Dolarhyde now. And they won’t leave – it’s like they’ve rented a room in my head. But you… You’re like the wallpaper of my mind. Every layer I peel back, I find more of you. And it’s got to the point where I don’t _want_ to strip myself of you, because I’ve really started to like the décor.”

Hannibal leant in and kissed him then, Will’s lips opening receptively and Hannibal’s mouth so hot on his, his tongue so deft; and then Hannibal was clambering on top of him again, mouths parting only for a second before greedily finding one another once more, Hannibal’s hands on either side of Will’s face, fingers in his hair, and Will lifting his hips to press his body closer to Hannibal, closer, wishing Hannibal would undress entirely so he could feel his skin against him. 

They broke apart for breath, and Hannibal kissed along Will’s jaw, down his throat. “I have missed you so much,” he whispered. “I have spent so many months dreaming about you, constructing monuments to you in my memory palace, but none could truly compare to you. You are exquisite and unique.”

“I fucking hate you,” Will mumbled, lifting his face to seek out Hannibal’s mouth again, catching his bottom lip between his teeth and teasing it gently before kissing him. “I wish I didn’t love you so much.”

Hannibal grinned. “The feeling is mutual. I was content in my life before I found you. Now I cannot live without you, though you constantly threaten everything else I hold dear. But I wouldn’t give you up for the world.”

They kissed again, long and hard. When Hannibal pulled away, his eyes were sad.

“I was so angry at you,” he said, sitting up and brushing hair out of his eyes. “I came here with the intention of hurting you badly before giving you pleasure. But now I wish only to give you pleasure.”

Will bit his lip, hesitant. “I would… quite like for you to hurt me, at least a little bit. If you feel the need to… to punish me… I think it might be therapeutic for both of us if you get it out of your system. What I did to you in the hospital – it felt fucking fantastic, seeing you helpless and submissive and begging like that. I think I’d like for you to experience that. I am not a fragile little teacup anymore. I can take it.”

Hannibal’s face slowly creased into a beautiful smile. “Are you sure?”

Will exhaled, and nodded. “Probably foolish of me, but… yes. Do what you want. Whatever you want.”

Hannibal thought for a moment, and then nodded as well, his eyes eager. “Open your mouth again for me then, darling. I don’t want you to change your mind.”


	5. Chapter 5

_And now, like amorous bird of prey,_  
_Rather at once our time devour_  
_Than languish in his slow-chapped power._

 

“Do we _have_ to use the gag again?” Will said, sighing, though his smile gave him away. “My jaw already hurts.”

Hannibal raised an eyebrow. “May I remind you that you planted this idea in my head, so you only have yourself to blame. And as a doctor, I advise you to take a large dose of your own medicine, and savour the taste.”

Will wriggled away from him as he held the gag up again. “Don’t you want to hear all the romantic things I have to say to you as you fuck me?”

Hannibal’s thin smile crept wider, exposing the tips of his teeth. “You can save them for next time. Your moans will be poetry enough.”

With another sigh, Will opened his mouth. Hannibal ran a finger around his parted lips before tucking the gag between his teeth once more. As he fastened the strap, he leant in and kissed Will just above the mouth, then climbed off him to return to his bag. He stood for a contemplative moment, before stooping to retrieve something which rattled metallically, concealing the thing in his hands before he turned back to Will.

“Do you remember when you visited me, you said you might like to do something to my nipples?” he said, smiling further as Will groaned. “I thought that was a very good idea. They are such a sensitive spot.”

He opened his hand and allowed the nipples clamps he was holding to dangle from his fingers, the chain connecting them tinkling as they swung. Perching on the edge of the bed, he wet two fingers and ran them over and around Will’s left nipple, tweaking it until it stood erect. He hesitated, leaning over to run his pink tongue over it, before attaching the clamp, his eyes never leaving Will’s. Will shuddered, moaning a little. Hannibal repeated the process on the other side, attaching the clamp and tightening both a fraction, before taking the chain connecting them in his long fingers and giving it a tug. Will hissed, breathing heavily through his nose. Hannibal seemed very pleased. 

“Good boy. Small doses of pain are good for the soul, aren’t they? Pain reminds us that we are still alive. And pleasure becomes all the more intense in comparison.”

His fingers moved down Will’s tanned stomach, pausing to stroke the trail of dark hair which led down from his navel, before creeping lower. He took Will’s stiff cock in his hand and slid his cool fingers up its length, slick with pre-cum. Will moaned as Hannibal began to rub up and down his shaft, his eyes fluttering closed, opening again to see Hannibal looking down at his hands as he jerked Will off with the concentration of a sculptor at work. Will could feel his body tensing, the throbbing pressure building with each gentle stroke of Hannibal’s long fingers – but then Hannibal released him. Will made a sound of protest and tried to roll his hips towards Hannibal, but Hannibal only shook his head.

“Not yet,” he said, firmly. He looked down at his hand, wet with Will’s pre-cum, and raised two fingers to his lips. His eyes closed for a moment as he sucked delicately, rolling the taste of Will around his mouth as though sampling a wine. “Not yet,” he repeated, suddenly sounding a little hoarse. “And when we come back to that, I won’t be using my hands.”

Will moaned again at the thought of Hannibal’s mouth around him, but Hannibal seemed serious about making him wait; he was standing up again. Will rattled his handcuffs, knowing any struggle on his part would turn Hannibal on, and barely able to contain his eagerness for Hannibal to take him. But, despite the unmistakable curve of his own erection pressing against the fabric of his briefs, Hannibal seemed composed. He set about removing several candles from his bag and placing them around the room, lighting them one by one from a match struck against his thumbnail. All but one of the candles were creamy white; the last, a deep bloody red, he placed on the bedside table beside Will’s head. As the flames flickered and grew, Hannibal stood and admired Will again, noting the subtle changes in his features in the candlelight, the pools of shadow forming in the hollows of his throat, how they shivered as he struggled to swallow. Thoughtfully, he made a few adjustments to the monuments he’d built to Will in his memory palace, wishing to capture this image of him precisely, submissive and displayed before him. But even as he did so, he became aware that these monuments would never be enough again. Should he be returned to his life of imprisonment, he would no longer be able to sustain himself by living in his palace with only the memory of Will. With the real man before him, exquisite in his flawed beauty and helpless grace, Hannibal knew that to reside alongside a mere imitation would drive him insane. 

“I cannot let you go,” he said, quietly, the candlelight catching the red in his eyes and making them shine hollowly like drops of blood freshly spilt. “You are everything I have.”

Will tried to say something, but whatever it was became lost in a low guttural moan. He twisted his head, presenting his exposed throat to Hannibal, the skin milk white in the darkness. His face was serene and beautiful, but his breathing had picked up a fraction; he was frightened. Watching the quick rise and fall of Will’s chest, the flicker of fear in his eyes competing with his unmistakable yearning and excitement, Hannibal felt something unclench in his own chest, a cold pressure which had gripped him during the bleak and relentless unpleasantness of his imprisonment. He let out a shaky breath, his lips trembling. 

“ _Et benedetto il primo dolce affanno ch’i’ ebbi ad esser con Amor congiunto, et l‘arco, et le saette ond’i’ fui punto, et le piaghe che ‘nfin al cor mi vanno._ ”

Will made a whimpering sound in answer. Hannibal smiled softly. He picked up the candle and watched the flame dance for a moment, before tilting it over Will and allowing a trickle of hot wax to splash onto his chest. Will gasped and cried out, his eyes screwing shut and his bound feet thumping against the mattress. Hannibal brought the candle closer to Will’s body and dripped more wax over him, up the exposed undersides of his arms, around his already oversensitive nipples, down the curves of his rib cage, his inner thighs. 

Through watering eyes, Will watched Hannibal’s face as he went about his work, registering how Hannibal’s pupils dilated slightly with every pained hitch in Will’s breathing, every choked whimper he made. He understood that Hannibal loved more than anything to be in control, and now he had manoeuvred himself into a position of dominance where he could not only control the pain and pleasure of the other entirely, but could relish in the satisfaction of knowing the other enjoyed what was done to him, enjoyed _whatever_ was done to him. And perhaps it was only his strange ability to empathise with Hannibal’s way of thinking, but Will _did_ enjoy this. He enjoyed the thrill of helplessness that came from knowing that Hannibal could hurt him badly if he wanted to, and the fear that tinged his own deepest fantasies about Hannibal. He enjoyed witnessing his own discomfort reflected back at him in Hannibal’s crooked smile and excited eyes. And he enjoyed knowing that, despite his drive for control, Hannibal would let Will turn the tables on him again, eventually, because he loved witnessing that side of Will, the part of him that could surprise him, could frighten him, could dominate him completely. 

Most of all, though, Will enjoyed the simple fact that Hannibal was here, Hannibal was _here_. After so many months apart, so many lonely meaningless months, Hannibal was here with him again, and nothing else mattered in this moment. Will could take a little pain if it kept Hannibal happy, kept him close. 

Hannibal dripped more wax down Will’s torso, getting uncomfortably close to his crotch this time. Will made a sound to get his attention and shook his head, groaning. He could feel the trickles of wax cooling and hardening on his stinging skin, and as much as he wanted to indulge Hannibal’s sadism, he didn’t want to be picking wax out of his pubic hair for the next week.

“No?” Hannibal said, his brow furrowing as he stared down at Will. “You told me to do whatever I wanted.”

He tilted the candle a fraction, and a drop of wax fell onto Will’s stomach, just below his scar. Another drop, lower. And another. Will’s hips jerked involuntarily. He was breathing fast through his nose. 

Hannibal smiled, and blew out the candle. “Don’t worry, I wasn’t planning on spilling wax on your genitals, William. It would spoil the taste.”

Will moaned, feeling saliva dribbling down his chin. The splashes of red wax on his skin looked like old wounds in the dim light of the room. He watched Hannibal set the candle down and prowl around the bed, considering. Finally he stopped beside Will’s feet.

“If I release your ankles, will you promise not to kick?” he said.

Will nodded. He lay very still as Hannibal’s long fingers untied the rope connecting his ankles to the bed frame, his toes curling receptively towards the man as Hannibal stroked one of his feet. When his legs were free, Hannibal gently parted his ankles and looked down at Will from the end of the bed.

“Would you like me to suck your cock now, Will?”

Will’s breath caught in his throat. Hannibal’s smile was beautiful when he whined desperately in reply. He pulled his ankles up the bed until his knees were bent, and moaned as he watched Hannibal slip out of his robe until he was wearing nothing but his tight little briefs, and climb cat-like onto the foot of the bed. Hannibal positioned himself, kneeling, between Will’s parted legs and placed his hands on Will’s knees. 

“How badly do you want it? Tell me.”

“ _So bad,_ ” Will moaned, struggling to get the point across through the obstruction in his mouth, drooling helplessly. 

“Beg me for it,” Hannibal said, clearly relishing the control. 

“ _Please_ ,” Will gasped, almost all vowels. “ _Please fuck me with your mouth, Hannibal._ ”

Hannibal’s fingers ran up the length of Will’s cock and Will gasped, shuddering. “I’ve thought about this for such a long time,” Hannibal murmured. He settled himself on the bed so his mouth was centimetres from Will, his hands gently pressing Will’s thighs apart. “And since you asked so nicely.”

“Please,” Will said again, and then Hannibal had taken his cock in his mouth and all Will could manage was a strangled gasp. He felt rather than heard Hannibal chuckle as his mouth began to move around Will, and then Will wasn’t overly aware of anything anymore. His eyes drifted closed but Hannibal pinched his thigh hard enough to make him squeal, so he forced himself to meet the man’s eyes, focussed intently on Will’s face as he took Will’s entire length in his mouth. 

Hannibal was an expert at this, Will thought, as far as he was capable of cogent thought with Hannibal’s perfect mouth sucking him off as though he were the most delectable meal the man had ever tasted. And after more than a year in the BSHCI, perhaps that was half-true; there was a glimmer of voracious yearning in Hannibal’s eyes which spoke to how deprived he had been. For the first time since Hannibal’s unexpected arrival, Will felt truly bad for failing to visit him for all those months. Not simply because he had deprived them both of this pleasure, but because he could feel Hannibal’s longing and loneliness moving through him even as Hannibal fucked Will so skilfully with his mouth that Will wanted to cry. He wanted to tell Hannibal how sorry he was, tell him how foolish he’d been for trying to put Hannibal behind him, beg him to forgive him. 

Instead, he simply moaned and pushed up his hips, forcing himself deeper into Hannibal’s mouth. He felt Hannibal chuckle again, a low rumble that made Will quiver, and then the man’s hands were gripping his hips tight enough for his nails to draw small crescents of blood, and his mouth was moving in earnest again. The small, wet noises Hannibal was making were almost enough to push Will over the edge, but he held himself back, biting down on his gag. Through the haze of pleasure around the corners of his vision, he managed to appreciate how beautifully serene Hannibal’s face was, how composed he looked, in complete control of his breathing, his cheeks hollowed, not choking, not even a hint that his eyes might be watering. 

Hannibal pulled back for a minute, breathing deeply. His lips moved across Will’s thigh, gently mouthing the skin, sucking and kissing, before slipping around the head of Will’s cock again. He blinked serenely up at Will as he sucked the tip, then let Will go again and sat up. Will whined and wriggled, his handcuffs rattling on the bedframe. 

“You are remarkable,” Hannibal murmured. He ran two fingers up Will's leaking length before raising them to his own lips and sucking them with a devilish smile. “So receptive to this, even knowing what I am.”

He ran his tongue across the ridge of his pointed upper teeth. “You think I won’t hurt you, but you’re not quite sure, are you? In the past, when you’ve dreamt about my mouth around you, did you consider how much flesh has passed between my lips? To consume you entirely… It would be the ultimate act of possessive romance, would it not?”

He smiled as Will’s breath caught in his throat. “Just something to consider,” he murmured, licking up and down Will’s cock, before taking it in his mouth again. 

Will gasped, feeling more drool run down the sides of his face. It was different now, Hannibal’s sleek head bobbing quicker, more urgently, his teeth scraping once across Will’s flesh, one hand gripping Will’s hip hard enough to leave bruises, the other creeping under Will’s body to stroke his perineum; without warning, he forced one wet finger inside of Will, and at the same time his other hand reached up to grab the chain connecting Will’s nipples and give it a sharp tug. Will screamed, and in the same moment he came, unable to stop himself, his cock still deep inside Hannibal’s mouth, his hips jerking on the bed. His eyes were watering uncontrollably, but he saw Hannibal’s eyebrows lift, a satisfied smile already creasing his lips as he slipped Will’s leaking cock out of his mouth and swallowed everything that Will had given him, one finger still inside of him; he forced another in, too much, too soon, and crooked them, and Will shuddered as he orgasmed again, moaning and crying, his release painting his own abdomen this time, his muscles turning to water as all the strength ran out of him. Hannibal removed his fingers and sat up, settling himself into a more comfortable position with his legs tucked under him, watching Will’s body shaking with aftershocks, running his tongue around his lips before wiping them with the back of his hand. He stroked Will’s thigh, his eyes dreamy and distant. 

“How does that make you feel?” he said, teasingly.

Will made an undistinguishable sound. His face was wet with drool and his body still quivered with the lingering remnants of his orgasms. He wanted to struggle against his handcuffs, to force Hannibal to remove the restraints so that he might show Hannibal how grateful he was, but he was too weak to do more than moan. 

Hannibal was biting his lower lip, looking around the messy room with a thoughtful look on his face. He looked too beautiful to be real, barely a hair out of place. “I’m not sure if this sorry excuse for a bedroom is much more of a romantic setting than my prison cell was, but I know that I am grateful to have my hands free this time.” His fingers roamed along Will’s thigh, lightly touching his cock. Will moaned at the touch; he was too sensitive, and he certainly didn’t have another one in him right now. 

Hannibal’s smile was surprisingly gentle. He sat up and climbed over Will so that he was straddling his hips, his own erection pressing against the fabric of his briefs, brushing Will’s stomach as he leant in to unfasten the strap behind his head and ease the wet gag from his lips again. Will sighed in relief; his jaw ached something fierce. Hannibal used the edge of the bedspread to wipe the worst of the drool from Will’s chin and cheeks and throat, before leaning in to kiss him slowly and softly. Will moaned into his mouth, the taste of himself still on Hannibal's lips. 

“Please don’t put that gag back in my mouth,” Will murmured, when they broke apart for breath. “I have spent more than a year imagining conversations with you, all the things I would say to you… I don’t want to be restricted now that you’re here.”

“You could have said them in person before,” Hannibal said, and the old hurt was still etched in his voice. “Or you could have written.”

“I know. I am sorry, Hannibal. I was… I was trying to do what I thought would be best for me. And I was wrong; I only ended up miserable. I was confused.”

“Are you confused now?”

Will thought for a moment, his eyes moving over Hannibal’s face, considering afresh how striking his features were, how stunning. “I think… This might be the clearest moment of our friendship.” 

He laughed. “Lying chained to my own bed, with sore nipples, covered in wax and bruises. That says a lot about our friendship.”

“Yes it does,” Hannibal said, leaning in to kiss greedily at Will’s throat. “You should not be complaining. You’re in a better state than you left me in.”

“Ah yes,” Will said, smiling fondly at the thought. “You were a bit of a mess.”

“You left me for Chilton to find like that,” Hannibal breathed into Will’s throat, his teeth dragging across Will’s jaw. “You may have stolen his copy of the footage, but he took _pictures_ of me.”

Will couldn’t help but laugh. Hannibal took hold of the chain between Will’s nipples and pulled it tight enough to make Will’s eyes water, but he was smiling. He kissed Will on the cheek, then slid off him and lay down beside him on his side, his head resting against Will’s arm so that their faces were very close. 

“Fortunately for me, Chilton cannot do anything with the pictures because he cannot prove that you were the one to do it to me,” Hannibal continued, the fingers of one hand wandering across Will’s chest as he spoke. “If he were to try to use them to humiliate me, it would make him look like a sexual deviant and an even poorer administrator than he already is, as I am clearly lying in restraints on the floor of his hospital covered in saliva and semen.” His fingers stroked Will’s right nipple and Will bit his lip to stop from moaning. “I am not entirely happy knowing that he has the pictures for his personal collection, however.”

“Do you think he jerks off to them?” Will said, amused. 

“I doubt if Frederick can get hard at the thought of me,” Hannibal said, sounding all-too pleased with himself. “Not after I almost took his fingers off.”  
Will glanced at him. “I hadn’t heard about that. What did he do to punish you for that one?”

Hannibal’s face darkened. “Let’s not talk about that just now, _mon amour_.”

“You can take pictures of me if you want,” Will said. “Even Stevens.”

“I do not need pictures of you. I have whole rooms and corridors in my memory palace dedicated to you. Your picture already lines the walls of my mind.”

“That’s surprisingly romantic, coming from you.”

“Some of the pictures are not savoury. There are many frescoes dedicated to your death and torture.”

“And that’s less romantic,” Will said, sighing. He wriggled, managing to lean close enough to kiss Hannibal’s forehead. “Will you please remove these handcuffs? My wrists hurt and I would like to touch you.”

“In a little while,” Hannibal said. “I want to fuck you soon, but I don’t think you’re ready yet.”

“Oh, no, I’m ready, I’m ready,” Will murmured, hearing the desperate plea in his voice, like a child begging for ice cream. “Please fuck me, oh God, please do it now.”

“You are exhausted,” Hannibal said, patiently, but his mouth curved into a crooked grin. “Wouldn’t you prefer to just lie together for a little while?”

“No, no I would not,” Will said, managing to roll the lower half of his body towards Hannibal and pressing against him, one leg hooking over Hannibal’s hips. “We can lie together afterwards – we can lie together for a whole week afterwards if that’s what you want – but please fuck me right now.”

Hannibal sat up, sighing. “Impatient thing,” he said, but he was grinning openly now. He reached over Will and picked up the handcuff key from the bedside table. “Hold still.”

Will complied, his heart pounding, as Hannibal removed his handcuffs and helped him to sit up. His back was slick with sweat. He made to rub his wrists where the cuffs had rubbed them raw, but Hannibal grabbed his hands and held them still. 

“Get on your knees and put your wrists behind your back for me.”

Will began to shake his head, already aware that any protests on his part were futile. “Can’t we just…?”

“No,” Hannibal said. Will was angry at himself for finding Hannibal’s triumphant smile so arousing, but he couldn’t help it. “We both know you’re going to do as you’re told, so let’s not mess around. If I have to ask you again, I’m going to put that gag back in your mouth as punishment.”

Will scrambled onto his knees and did as he was told, with nothing more than a petulant sigh as he felt the cuffs closing around his wrists again. Hannibal kissed along his shoulder blades, then climbed off the bed. Will moaned as Hannibal slipped out of his briefs. He had never seen Hannibal fully naked before; the last time, he’d been bound in a straightjacket over the tattered remains of his jumpsuit. The sight was more wonderful than anything he had imagined. 

“Did you have to cuff me?” he said, sulkily. “I want to run my hands all over you.”

“I know,” Hannibal said. “And you will, but not right now. For now, you are mine to do with as I please.”

“You look fucking fantastic,” Will said.

“I have been working out in my cell,” Hannibal said. He had removed a sachet of lubricant from his bag, and Will could barely concentrate on what he was saying as watched him rub it up the length of his stiff cock. “I acquired the means of my escape some months ago, and was waiting for the right opportunity to execute it. In the meantime, I kept a strict exercise routine. I wanted to look good for you.”

“Oh you always look good,” Will murmured. “Right now, though, right now you look like a million dollars.”

“I think that’s how much they’re offering for information leading to my arrest,” Hannibal said, grinning, and climbed onto the bed behind Will. He put a hand on the back of Will’s head and forced it down onto the pillow so that Will was bent over completely with his ass in the air. Will felt his cock twitch at being so exposed; he must look a sight already, but he knew that Hannibal would not be through with him until he was thoroughly debauched. He moaned as Hannibal rubbed gently at his rim before sliding one lubricated finger inside of him, and Will felt his legs almost give way beneath him. 

“ _Oh fuck_ Hannibal, fuck,” Will mumbled, twisting his head so that his cheek lay flat against the pillow and he could look at Hannibal behind him. “Just fucking put in me, I’m ready.”

“Are you unfamiliar with the concept of savouring the moment, William, or are you really this impatient?” Hannibal said, pushing another long finger into Will and beginning to open him up, nudging teasingly his prostrate. “You have no self-control.”

“I don’t, I really don’t, now just fuck me already,” Will muttered, pushing his hips back and groaning as Hannibal’s fingers slid deeper into him. He was rewarded with a third finger and began to pant into the sheets as Hannibal fucked him roughly with his fingers, shallow at first, twisting and stroking just inside his rim, before assaulting his prostate until Will was howling with need. He was already achingly hard again, something he hadn't thought possible five minutes ago, and he could tell by the feral sounds coming from Hannibal that he was becoming overwhelmed with want as well. It was an effort to get words out. “Please... I’ve been waiting for this... oh, oh my God... since we first met.”

Hannibal pulled his fingers out and arranged himself behind Will, one hand settling on Will’s hips, his cock just brushing Will’s hole, close enough to make Will’s whole body quiver with anticipation. “All you ever had to do was ask,” he murmured, and the next thing Will knew, Hannibal had entered him. 

Will gasped, his breath catching in his throat, fingers curling into fists behind his back and then relaxing. “Oh god. Yes. Do it, please, fuck me hard Hannibal. Make me scream.”

“Don’t worry, darling, I intend to,” Hannibal said, hands gripping Will’s hips, slowly pushing himself deeper into Will until he was impaled to the hilt, savouring the heat, the tightness of Will's slick hole, immensely pleased with the small noises he was drawing from the man. “Am I the first man you’ve had inside you?”

“No,” Will admitted, feeling his face flush for reasons he couldn’t fully explain; it was absurd to get embarrassed about it with another man’s cock in his ass, but somehow it seemed distasteful to have this discussion with Hannibal. “I fucked a couple of guys in college, and I let one fuck me, once. But I didn't really like it. It wasn't like this.”

“So you’re attracted to men and women?” Hannibal said, with the clinical detachment Will might expect from his doctor while getting a prostrate exam. 

“It depends on the person,” Will said, breathlessly, moaning deeply as Hannibal began to move inside of him, painfully slowly, taking his time. “Are you disappointed that you’re not my first?”

“I’m the first that counts,” Hannibal said, and one hand crept up Will’s chest to tug at the chain attached to his nipples again. Will cried out, his body tightening around Hannibal, and that was when Hannibal began to fuck him hard, one hand still gripping his hips while the other began to jerk Will’s cock tightly, already slick with pre-cum, and Will was almost sobbing into the pillow. Hannibal grabbed a handful of Will’s hair instead, pulling Will’s head up so that Will was perching precariously on his knees while Hannibal pushed into him, feeling his eyes tearing as he became overwhelmed with sensation. He could feel the sweat running down his spine, dripping off his nose. The sounds they were making - Hannibal's thighs smacking his own, his sobs and curses - were obscene. He wanted to hear them every day, forever. 

Hannibal let his hair go and slowed down; Will crashed back into the pillow, panting, his breath stuttering out of him in little whines. Hannibal leaned in and kissed along his back, his hands gently caressing Will’s hips and buttocks. 

“Are you alright?”

“Yes,” Will gasped, pushing his hips back again to let Hannibal know how receptive he was to this situation, groaning as he felt how deeply Hannibal was inside of him. “You’re just a lot to take.”

“You feel wonderful,” Hannibal murmured, his fingers caressing Will’s cock and pulling another moan out of him. “I am having difficulty holding myself back.”

“Don’t hold back; fuck me as hard as you want. I can take it.”

“You act like we are both a lot younger than we actually are,” Hannibal said, and Will could hear the smile in his voice. “And I don’t want to break you.”

“Oh fuck you,” Will said, laughing breathlessly, then yelping as Hannibal spanked his sore ass, hard, with the flat of his palm. “Will you just-”

He didn’t get to finish his sentence, because Hannibal slapped him again hard enough to make tears spring to his eyes, before pushing his face into the pillow and fucking him until he was almost screaming. 

“ _Ha-Ha-Hannibal m-may I c-come,_ ” he gasped, barely able to contain himself any longer.

“You may,” Hannibal said, taking Will’s cock in his hand again and jerking it tightly, and a second later Will came, crying out and shuddering, biting the pillow to stop himself screaming Hannibal’s name loud enough for his neighbours down the road to hear. Hannibal worked Will through his orgasm before pushing him down onto his stomach, hooking one leg around his hip, gripping his shoulder for support, and fucking him hard enough to scatter any coherent thought from Will’s head, before pulling out and coming over Will’s back, over his cuffed hands. He collapsed beside Will on the bed, mumbling something in Lithuanian, his silvery hair slick with sweat. 

For a minute, they just lay together, Will on his stomach and Hannibal on his side, both panting and exhausted. Will’s shoulders ached and he felt sticky all over. He flexed his fingers, feeling Hannibal’s cum dripping off them, and sighed.

“God dammit, Hannibal, did you have to do it all over my back?” 

Hannibal laughed breathlessly and then Will was laughing too. Hannibal put his hand on Will’s face and leant in to kiss him until both were gasping for air. 

“I’ve missed you,” Hannibal whispered, stroking Will’s damp curls away from his face.

“I’ve missed you, too,” Will said, kissing along Hannibal’s wrist. “Now remove these fucking handcuffs so I can take a shower.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not fantastic at the dirty stuff, sorry. I did some research for it by reading other people's much better smut, and doing some googling, so I hope it reads alright. 
> 
> The Italian Hannibal speaks is from one of Petrarch's poems, and translates as:
> 
> 'And blessed be the first sweet suffering  
> That I felt in being conjoined with Love,  
> And the bow, and the shafts with which I was pierced,  
> And the wounds that run to the depths of my heart.'


	6. Chapter 6

_But how could I avoid to be his Slave,_   
_Whose subtile Art invisibly can wreath_   
_My Fetters of the very Air I breathe?_

 

Hannibal removed Will’s handcuffs after only minimal coaxing, then went to get a towel while Will tentatively removed the clamps from his sore nipples, grumbling. He let Hannibal gently kiss them in apology before wiping the cum off his back and thighs, smiling at the way Hannibal bothered to fold the towel before setting it on the floor. When Hannibal lay down again, Will did not hesitate to settle beside him, his head resting on Hannibal’s chest. Hannibal stroked Will’s hair lazily, his other hand propped behind his head. The few candles that were still lit were burning low. 

“That was the best it’s ever been for me,” Will said, his fingers tracing patterns on Hannibal’s firm stomach as he spoke. “I didn’t know it could be that good, especially when it was so… intense. I didn’t know if I’d like that.” He laughed. “I think maybe I just liked it because it was you doing it to me.”

Hannibal smiled sleepily. “Controlled doses of pain can be cathartic. You may say you love me, and I may say I love you, and while neither of us is lying, we cannot deny that the old resentments we held against one another still linger in the air between us. A little punishment to accompany pleasure helps to clear the air, and makes our love more truthful.”

“Yes. You stab me, I come to hurt you. I ignore your letters, you come to hurt me. I definitely feel that our relationship is healthier as a result.”

He could feel Hannibal’s chest shaking with a soft laugh. “What is healthy and stable for us is quite different from what might be considered so for a normal couple. It is a pointless comparison to make.”

Will lifted his head to meet Hannibal’s eye. “So we’re a couple now? And an abnormal one at that.”

Hannibal tilted his head to kiss the corner of Will’s mouth. “We are far from normal, and I would not have it any other way. Things will never be mundane and ordinary between us.”

“But we are a couple?”

“I would say so, yes.”

Will put his hand behind Hannibal’s head and pulled his face down for a long kiss. “You did send Dolarhyde to kill me after I visited you, though,” he said. “I’m still feeling a touch resentful about that.”

Hannibal’s lips curled into an amused smile. “Then it might be therapeutic for you to put me over your knee and let me know exactly how resentful you are.”

“Oh, I’ll do more than put you over my knee for that one,” Will said, chuckling, shuffling into a more comfortable position against Hannibal’s warm body. “But not right now. Too tired.”

“We should get up and shower, and then I shall cook something for you. You must be ravenous.”

“I am. But let’s just lie here for a few minutes more. For the first time in a very long time, I am feeling… content.”

Hannibal’s fingers stroked Will’s sweaty curls. “It could be like this always, Will. We do not need to part again.”

Will bit his lip, feeling a dark fog of sadness encroaching on the warm glow of post-coital happiness. “We’re going to have this conversation, and we’re going to have it soon,” he said, quietly, feeling the gentle rise and fall of Hannibal’s chest under his cheek, feeling his heartbeat, feeling painfully alive. “But not right now. Please.”

Hannibal looked down at Will’s naked body, so tanned against his own paleness, with its old scars and fresh bruises. He looked down at Will and felt again that terrible magnificent truth that made him tremble in its powerful certainty. 

To go back to life without Will would be to die. 

If Will would not come with him, he was not entirely certain what he might do.

“Let it be later then,” he said, a little hoarse. 

Will gently kissed Hannibal’s chest, afraid that he had upset him. But he knew that the conversation of what came next would be a difficult one, and it was not one that he felt prepared to have in this present moment. Every word he shared with Hannibal was like a brick being moved from the shaky foundation of his old life into the uncertain territory that was life with Hannibal. And while that life was enticing – frighteningly so – there were unknown horrors lurking in the dark of their future together. He could not dismantle himself completely without first considering what it might mean to put himself back together at Hannibal’s side.

“You are an infinitely patient man, you can wait,” he murmured, running one finger around Hannibal’s nipple until it stood erect. “You spent more than a year in a cell; you can survive a few hours quiet time before we talk about our future.”

Hannibal suddenly grabbed his wrist tight enough to bruise. “Don’t… Let’s not talk about that.”

Will’s breath caught in his throat; Hannibal’s fingers were digging into the raw marks the handcuffs had left on his wrist. “Alright, you could have just asked. I’m sorry.”

Hannibal hesitated, then relaxed his grip. He stroked Will’s fingers, then raised them to his lips to kiss. “I apologise. That was uncalled for.” His voice was uncharacteristically low. “I did not mean to hurt you.”

“It’s fine,” Will murmured into his chest, feeling Hannibal shiver beneath him. “I didn’t realise your imprisonment had affected you so much.” 

Hannibal was silent for a moment, going so completely still that Will was almost concerned that he had stopped breathing. Then he sighed.

“My time in that prison cell was not pleasant,” he said, simply. “It is not an experience I want to dwell on. Surely you of all people will understand that.”

“I thought you would just live in your memory palace,” Will said, with a stab of guilt; he had, after all, been almost solely responsible for Hannibal’s imprisonment. And Hannibal was right – the months Will had spent in that awful place had been some of the worst of his life, surrounded by madness, slowly losing his grip on himself. He had not spent nearly as much time there has Hannibal, and still it had been more than enough. “I had hoped you could be happy there.”

“I found some contentment in my memory palace, yes,” Hannibal said, his eyes drifting closed. “I would spend days at a time wandering its halls, admiring the art I had stored there, listening to music and poetry. There are a great many installations dedicated to you, beautiful things. I would linger amongst them and dream as the esteemed Dr Chilton had his orderlies strap me down for hours on end, feeding me through a tube. Dr Chilton was displeased that I tried to deprive him of some of his fingers you see, and so he tried to deprive me first of my privileges, then my dignity, and finally of my own mind.”

He swallowed. His whole body had tensed beneath Will. Will waited quietly for him to continue, bitter guilt rising in his throat, threatening to choke him. He had never heard Hannibal speak like this, with this quiet confessional reluctance, as if he was hesitantly exposing his soul despite the wounds it had already suffered. As much as Will wanted to know Hannibal, to know every part of him, he hoped never to hear him speak like this again. 

“I stored myself away inside my mind,” Hannibal murmured, so quiet now that Will had to strain to hear. “Hid myself away… Then they began to give me drugs and… and the… the…”

He fell silent. For a full minute, Will was terrified to look at him, terrified that he might see Hannibal crying and lose his grip on his sanity completely. But he was not. His eyes were open again, fixed resolutely on the ceiling, his jaw tight. Tentatively, Will wriggled up to kiss his throat, his cheek, the corner of his lips. After a moment, Hannibal sighed. His fingers roamed through Will’s hair, but his hand was shaking slightly. 

“I’m so sorry,” Will whispered. Relieved as he was that Hannibal wasn’t crying, he thought that he might. “I didn’t realise it would be like that for you.”

“I brought most of it upon myself,” Hannibal said, a slight smile creasing his lips. “I should perhaps applaud Dr Chilton for his cruel and unusual punishments; I didn’t think he had it in him. Pain and solitude hold no fear for me, but he found a way to hurt me regardless. What I thought I feared most was losing myself. But perhaps more, I feared losing the small piece of you I had stored within myself.”

Despite all his reservations, his desire to think things through before coming to a decision, Will found he could not help himself. “You’re not going to lose me,” he murmured, his lips on Hannibal’s throat, breathing his promise into the man’s skin, into the pulse which leapt beneath. “You’re never going to lose me again.”

Hannibal’s mouth sought his and they forgot themselves for several minutes, content in each other’s warmth and stillness. When they broke apart again, Hannibal sat up.

“We should shower. You are sticky.”

“Whose fault is that?” 

Hannibal smiled wryly. “We can shower together. I want to take care of you now, after hurting you.”

“That isn’t necessary.”

“Yes it is,” Hannibal said, simply. “Will, when you left me that day in the hospital, I was in pieces, emotionally and, yes, physically as well. When they finally came to take me out of the straightjacket, I was shaking uncontrollably and could barely stand on my own two feet. I could not bring myself to eat for a full day. Add to all that the fact that I could barely sit down for a week because my buttocks and thighs were black and blue from that cruel paddling you gave me, and I think you will understand when I say that it was a rough week for me. But all of that would have been tolerable if it were not for the fact that you had abandoned me.”

Will chewed his lip. “Shit… I’m sorry I did that to you.”

“Don’t be,” Hannibal said, climbing off the bed and heading toward the bathroom, stretching. He paused, lounging in the doorframe, admiring Will. “I immensely enjoyed the pleasure you gave me, and I will begrudgingly admit that I enjoyed the pain as well. Just understand where I am coming from when I say that I desire to take care of you now, to let you know how much I love you and how proud I am of you for taking your punishment in your stride.”

Will crawled off the bed and followed Hannibal to the bathroom, picking at a lump of hardened wax caught in the fine hair on his chest. “As long as you help me get this shit off, I’ll be happy.”

“So no candles next time?” Hannibal said, wrapping his arms around Will’s waist and pulling him close for a quick kiss. “Not a fan?”

“Perhaps not,” Will said, grinning. “Although I wouldn’t mind using them on you one time, see how much _you_ like it.”

*

The smell of bacon frying filled the small house as Will dressed languorously after the long shower. His skin still tingled pleasurably from Hannibal’s touch. Hannibal had insisted upon soaping him down and washing his hair for him, the long fingers which had expertly sliced open so many fragile bodies now gentle as silk against Will’s skin. Hannibal’s hands had lingered on the white scar they had left across Will’s stomach, before he dropped to his knees and kissed his apology onto it. He had kissed other things as well, both of them too tired to get hard again but content in the intimacy of the gesture. After a while they had just held one another as the cool water ran down their bodies, Will’s head on Hannibal’s shoulder and his eyes closed as Hannibal murmured softly into his hair, sweet nonsense about teacups and time and the rules of disorder. 

When they stepped from the shower, Hannibal had rubbed lotion into Will’s sore skin, before dressing quickly and leaving Will alone while he made dinner. Will had lingered in the bathroom for a time, examining the fresh bruises and marks Hannibal had painted upon him with fascination and mild amusement and, if he was being perfectly honest, a little pride. It thrilled him to see the thin red lines Hannibal’s nails had left down his chest, the clear imprint of the man’s fingers around his throat. To have lain with a man who could be a monster, to wear the marks of his cruelty as tokens of love… It was a strange thing to be proud of, but Will could not deny that he was. Fiercely so, in fact.

He shaved slowly, reluctantly, knowing that Hannibal preferred him a little neater than he currently was. Still, the ugly scar Dolarhyde had left on him was all the more prominent without several days’ rough stubble to distract from it. He sighed at his reflection before digging out fresh clothes to wear, clean chinos and a loose white cotton shirt, nervously fiddling with the buttons, wanting to look good for Hannibal. When he eventually padded barefoot into the kitchen, Hannibal was at the counter dishing scrambled eggs onto plates, hair still damp from the shower. The pleased smile he offered upon Will’s entrance made Will’s heart leap. He accepted his heaped plate gratefully, and they settled at the rickety table by the window to eat. Will could see the dog’s chasing each other further down the beach, no doubt having been well-fed already by their favourite houseguest.

“Your kitchen is surprisingly well-stocked,” Hannibal commented, pouring Will a glass of orange juice before sipping from his own. “I was not expecting to find edible food in your fridge, let alone herbs or spices.”

Will chuckled around a mouthful of bacon. “Yeah well I picked up a few good habits from you along with all the bad ones. This is delicious, by the way.”

“There are also an awful lot of bottles in there, Will,” Hannibal said, frowning. “Should I be concerned about your liver?”

“My liver and I have an agreement.”

“Is that agreement for you to slowly poison it until neither of you can function anymore?”

Will stared down at his plate, pretending to chew for a while though there was nothing in his mouth. “I… I have been drinking a little too much since Molly left. I accept that. I’ve been lonely. But I’ll get it under control.”

Hannibal reached across the table and put two fingers under Will’s chin, forcing him to tilt his face up and look at him. Hannibal’s mouth lifted into a gentle smile, the web of fine lines around his eyes creasing sincerely. 

“We have both been lonely. There is no need for it any longer.”

His fingers stroked Will’s jaw, then he picked up his fork again. They didn’t speak again until they had finished eating, both comfortable in each other’s silence. When the plates were cleared, Hannibal rose to rinse them in the sink, putting a hand on Will’s shoulder when he tried to get up to help. He poured Will another glass of juice, then stood behind him and began to massage the tension out of Will’s aching neck and shoulders, drawing a low groan from him. 

Will looked out the window, grateful that he couldn’t see Hannibal’s face. It was time to have the conversation he had been dreading. 

“You want us to run away together.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes. We cannot stay here. There is no life for me here anymore. Not as a free man, at least.”

“I know.”

“Then what is it that troubles you? Are you attached to this place, or are you still harbouring reservations about allowing me my freedom?”

Will sighed, stretching out his legs under the table, relaxing into Hannibal’s firm and skilful touch. “No, I wouldn’t have you confined in the hospital again. It would be senseless.”

“I doubt very much that I would see the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane again,” Hannibal said. “If I am caught now, I will almost certainly be executed. Jack Crawford will see to that.”

Will felt the blood drain from his face. He closed his eyes, suddenly feeling as though Hannibal’s grip on his shoulders was the only thing holding him up. 

“Don’t… Don’t say that.”

Hannibal stroked the damp curls at the base of Will’s neck. “I killed six people to facilitate my escape – an escape which was calculated and organised, not the impulsive work of a deranged madman. Jack Crawford and the courts are not going to make the same mistake again. They will see to it that I am retried and found legally sane to execute.”

The old nightmare was playing behind Will’s closed eyes again, so vivid and terrible it felt like a premonition… A long and ugly trial, a maximum security cell; one last visit with Hannibal dressed in white, looking thin and tired but composed, stiff and dignified to the last, lamenting the denial of a glass of wine with his last meal while Will tried not to cry; one last sombre kiss with Hannibal telling him to be brave, holding him as though he could press the memory of Will into him and take it with him if only he could hold tight enough, and then he would be taken away, taken away in restraints while Will wept freely, taken away and strapped to a table and put down like an animal, and Will would have to watch as the life left Hannibal’s face, until he left Will all alone –

“Will?”

He felt Hannibal face nestle against the top of his head and reached up to stroke the man’s sleek hair. He was shaking. He remembered Jack’s description of the slaughter Hannibal had committed on the way out of the hospital; six dead, organs taken, a nurse with her face savaged beyond recognition… He knew that, as a man who had dedicated half his life to upholding the law, he ought to find the thought of Hannibal dead at least a necessary evil if not a comfort or a triumph… But he didn’t. He couldn’t. He knew it was dangerous to tacitly ignore the worst in Hannibal while enjoying the best, but the thought of Hannibal being taken away from him now, after all they had been through, was one he simply could not come to terms with.

“I’m not going to let that happen,” he said as Hannibal leant in to kiss the back of his neck, Will’s fingers still roaming through his hair. 

“I don’t think you’d have much say in the matter,” Hannibal murmured. “If I was caught now, I would make sure that you were not implicated as an accessory. I have enough drugs and scalpels in my possession to convince the FBI that I came here to hurt you, and that you were in no position to stop me. All I would expect from you would be for you to agree and let the matter lie.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

Hannibal sighed. “There would be no sense in both of us going to prison.”

“I couldn’t sit back quietly and watch them give you the death penalty, Hannibal. I couldn’t.”  
Hannibal was very still for a moment.

“I should prefer to have them kill me than to go back to the hospital,” he said, his words slow and quiet and tinged with a determined pride which made Will’s heart ache in its stubbornness. “I should prefer to die by a needle than have my mind slowly obliterated by shock therapy and drugs, to be reduced to a shell of myself and forced to continue living. I should prefer you to know that I am nowhere than to know that I am broken and useless somewhere.”

He spoke without fear, without sadness, but Will felt something wet drop onto his neck. No sooner had it happened than Hannibal had brushed it away. Neither mentioned it. Hannibal kissed Will’s neck once more, his face nuzzling into the curve of his shoulder, inhaling Will’s scent as if it might be his last time, still sweet and fresh from the shower. Then he took his seat opposite Will again, his face composed.

“Okay,” Will murmured, feeling his heart race at the decision he was about to make, both terrifying and incredible, the first timid step into a new life. “Let’s do. Let’s run away.”

He saw the thrill of exquisite happiness that filled Hannibal’s eyes, but the man simply nodded. “If that is what you want, Will.”

“It is,” Will said, and he realised for the first time how true that was. He thought he had been denying Hannibal for a long time, but in truth he had been denying himself what he really wanted, lying to himself that he didn’t. Finally admitting it felt like a rope had been severed within him, a rope holding him back from… From what exactly? He wasn’t entirely sure. He knew that he would change for this decision – that his whole life would change. He didn’t care. He wanted to be with Hannibal, and all other concerns were second to that one glorious irrefutable truth. 

He pursed his lips, trying to hold back the smile that was tugging at them, unable to stop it. He lifted his eyes to Hannibal’s face and grinned. “It’s what I want. It’s all I want. There’s nothing holding me here anymore. I just want to be with you. I’ll follow you anywhere.”

Hannibal’s stoic face broke into a smile as well. It made him look ten years younger. “Where shall we go?”

“I don’t care. As long as I’m with you, I don’t care where I am.”

“I have a good deal of money, tucked away where the FBI couldn’t find it when I was incarcerated. Enough that we can live in comfort for the rest of our lives. I would like to take you travelling, Will. I would like to show you all the beautiful things that I have seen – the sculptures and the chapels of Italy, the palaces of France. I will introduce you to all the art and poetry that I love, and see it’s beauty reflected tenfold in your eyes as you behold it. And when you tire of the world, we will find a quiet corner of it and wile away our days together in peace. You will want for nothing. I will dedicate the rest of my life to making you happy, every moment of every day.”

“Will you be happy?”

“If I am with you? It is the only thing left that I desire from this life. Yes, I will be happy.”

Will nodded, finding he could no longer meet Hannibal’s eye. “Will you need to kill?”

A silence fell between them. Will bit his lip. He felt as though the momentary happiness his decision had brought now lay precariously beneath the guillotine this question presented. He could tell without looking that Hannibal was watching his face as he answered.

“I am not compelled to kill. It is something I choose to do. I will want to kill. But if you ask me to stop… I will stop.”

“I wouldn’t want to ask you… to deny that part of yourself.”

“If we may find a peace, I would preserve it. Killing during our residency would only attract suspicion.”

Will lifted his eyes and found Hannibal watching him with calm, thoughtful intensity. “What if we were careful?”

He saw the surprise register on Hannibal’s face – a slight parting of the lips, raise of the eyebrows – before he smiled. “If we were careful…”

“We might make exceptions,” Will finished, slowly, feeling an old cog turn in his head, a bit of the machinery he hadn’t used in quite a while, had denied himself. “There are those who are… unworthy… of the lives they lead. Displaying a body would attract attention of course. But sometimes people just… disappear.”

Hannibal acknowledged his words with a slight tilt of the head. “They do.”

“Then we might find a way to satisfy all our needs. So long as we’re careful.”

Hannibal was perfectly still for a moment, and then he was on his feet and pulling Will from his chair before the other man had a chance to react, both tumbling to the ground as Hannibal’s hands ripped the buttons from Will’s fresh shirt in his urgency to get at Will’s chest, their mouths already moulding together, Will’s fingers tangling in Hannibal’s hair. They remained that way until both were panting for breath, when Hannibal finally pulled back and sat up, still straddling Will, running a hand through his tousled hair and smiling down at Will with infinite love and adoration.

“You continue to surprise me,” he said, leaning in to kiss at Will’s throat. 

Will laughed breathlessly and tried playfully to push Hannibal off, but the bigger man would not budge. “Yes, well, I surprise myself too when I’m around you.” He sighed, his contentment interrupted by a needle of worry. “Are we really going to do this?”

“We’re really going to do this. If you want to, of course.”

“I do. It’s just… It’s mad. But it’s exciting.”

Hannibal smiled again, his face inches from Will’s. “Then we shall prepare to leave right away. How long do you think before Jack Crawford pays you another visit?”

“I’ll phone him tomorrow, tell him there’s no sign of you. That should buy us another day or two at least. There’s something I need to do before we go.”

“Yes?”

Will tilted his head toward the array of feeding bowls lined up along the kitchen wall. “I need to find a loving home for the dogs. We can’t take them with us, and I won’t just stick them in a shelter.”

“I didn’t think of that. Will you be okay?”

Will sighed, grateful for the warmth of Hannibal’s body over his. “I’ll miss my dogs. But not as much as I would miss you.”

Hannibal leant in and kissed him softly around the lips. “Where will you take them?”

“I know a couple who will look after them for me, who I trust,” Will said, responding to Hannibal’s kisses by planting one of his own, on the tip of the man’s nose. “I need to pay a visit to Mrs and Mrs Verger-Bloom.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realise I'm slow at getting chapters out, and I apologise. But I have the whole thing plotted so hopefully won't take me too long to get the rest finished :)


	7. Chapter 7

_Gather the flowers, but spare the buds_

 

The roads were quiet as Will made his way toward the Verger estate. A light rain was falling, glinting on the trees in the first grey light of the dawn. The dogs were asleep in the back, their snuffling breaths a pleasant complement to the soft sound of the radio. Will tapped his fingers on the steering wheel in time to the music, though he wasn’t really listening. His mind was back at the small house on the beach, with Hannibal. A smile kept catching at his lips and he found himself grinning at the empty road. His posture was more relaxed than it had been in years. He felt good. Better than good. For the first time in a very long time, he felt like himself. Complete. 

Hannibal had been very gentle with him that first night. As the bruises rose on Will’s skin, Hannibal’s touches had become increasingly tender, his words increasingly soothing. Will had slept curled up against his chest, and had woken late the following morning to the aromas of fresh coffee and warm bread. He’d found Hannibal in the kitchen, naked except for an apron, his hair still tousled from sleep, and he’d known at that moment that he never wanted to wake up to a different sight ever again. After breakfast, Hannibal had insisted on giving Will another massage to ease his stiff muscles, and had resisted firmly when Will tried to give him something in return, claiming Will needed a little recovery time. Instead, they’d spent the day nestled together on the couch, Will’s head in Hannibal’s lap and Hannibal’s fingers roaming softly through his hair as he read to Will, all the poetry he’d loved in his youth, beautiful words that made his heart ache. And when night had fallen, they had gone skinny-dipping in the warm ocean, beads of water glistening in their hair like pearls in the moonlight, mouths salty from tasting each other’s wet skin, their hands all over one another. Hannibal hadn’t protested that time when Will knelt before him in the shallows and sucked his cock until he was crying Will’s name to the night. They had barely made it through the door before Hannibal had bent Will over a kitchen counter and fucked him senseless, leaving a fresh red bite mark on Will’s shoulder as a token of his love.

Will smiled to himself as he turned into the long driveway. He wondered what Hannibal was doing, if he was sleeping, dreaming of him. He had set out the day before, knowing he had to but reluctant to leave, piling the dogs into the car and lingering too long on the porch with Hannibal, kissing goodbye again and again, unable to make it stick.

“Be careful,” he had said anxiously, not for the first time, holding Hannibal tightly as if to cement him in place, terrified the man would not be there when he got back, that this had all been some elaborate dream. 

“I will be careful,” Hannibal had assured him patiently, not for the first time. 

“About forty-eight hours. Just stay in the house with the curtains closed. There’s plenty of food. Don’t answer the door. I don’t think anyone will come by – my neighbours avoid me… But be careful, please.”

“I will.”

“I’ll make sure Jack knows where I am so he won’t drop by for a sudden visit. And when I get back… Mmmm…” He’d broken off, distracted by Hannibal’s hot mouth on his throat, rough tongue tracing his jaw. “When I get back, we’ll leave,” he’d finished, pulling himself away and stepping back, biting his bottom lip as he took in the sight of Hannibal standing tall and beautiful on his porch, fighting the urge to jump on him and kiss him again. “We’ll go. We’ll run away. But not before I’ve had a chance to use those handcuffs and nipple clamps on _you_ …”

Hannibal had moaned, a shudder of pleasure rippling through him at the thought. “You forgot the gag.”

“Oh believe me, I won’t forget the gag.”

“Do you still have that paddle?”

“No, I didn’t want Molly to find it and get… ideas… about me.”

“Shame.”

“Well… Maybe I’ll make one little stop on my way back… Pick up a gift for you. I’d love to have something that vibrates to really get you going…”

Hannibal had moaned again, wetting his lips. “Hurry back,” he’d said, a little hoarse.

He had been gone only a day, but to Will it already felt like a week. He could not remember how he’d survived separation from Hannibal for so long, when now he felt like a junkie going cold turkey when out of the man’s presence for more than an hour. No, that wasn’t quite right. He felt himself around Hannibal, wholly himself, and being apart from him was like leaving behind one of his own limbs.

 _Only a day more, two at most_ , he told himself, as he pulled up outside the main house and killed the engine. He’d made good time getting here, stopping only when necessary, to eat or use the restroom or let the dogs get some air, sleeping very briefly, a flask of coffee never far from hand. He was tired but happy, and not just at the prospect of returning to Hannibal. He had not seen Margot for some time, and Alana for longer still. If things went to plan, he would never see them again. He wanted to say goodbye. 

The front door to the big house was open before he’d even had a chance to unbuckle his seatbelt. Margot stepped out onto the porch and watched him exit the vehicle with that lovely easy smile she’d only discovered after her brother’s death. She was dressing differently as well – the stiff high collars were gone, replaced with a loose silken dress that fluttered in the breeze as she wrapped her arms around Will and pulled him close. 

“I’ve missed you, stranger! You stink though, what on earth have you been doing?”

He drew back, grinning. “Driving. For a whole day. With a car full of dogs. Yeah, I probably stink.”

Margot leaned around him to get a look at the car. “Wow, you weren’t kidding. Did you bring all of them?”

“I have a favour to ask of you and Alana.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Oh boy. You better come in then. I’ll have someone come for the dogs, they must be hungry.”

“Thank you.” He followed her into the entrance hall, smiling mildly at the décor. The estate was a lot less ostentatious in its décor since Mason’s death, evidently refurbished by someone with actual taste, likely Alana and Margot themselves. It was lighter, too, windows thrown open and flowers scenting the air, softer colours than he remembered. It would be a good place to raise a child, the horrors of the past not painted over and swept out of sight but rather done away with entirely, memorialised only in the scars left behind. 

“Alana will be excited to see you,” Margot said over her shoulder, her heels clicking pleasantly on the marble as she walked. “She talks about you a lot.” 

“How far along is she?” 

“Eight months,” Margot said, and Will did not need to see her face to know she was smiling. “We’ve got the nursery all set up.”

“Congratulations, Margot.”

She glanced over her shoulder this time, smiling broadly. When he caught up with her, she gripped his hand and squeezed briefly, before pushing open a set of double doors and leading him into a large, cosy lounge with a fire crackling in the hearth. 

Alana was settled on a velvet chaise lounge by the fireplace, back propped up by a dozen soft pillows. She was more beautiful than he had ever seen her, Will thought, as her rosy face broke into a broad smile upon seeing him enter. She started to get up but he waved his hand at her, Margot chastising her with soft reproaches as she crossed the room to settle at her side. Will took an armchair, grateful for the comfort of the warm room and plush furnishings after so many hours cooped up in his car. He watched Margot brush a strand of Alana’s hair behind her ear, their happiness washing over him like sunlight falling across his skin.

“I’m sorry I missed the wedding.”

“We understood; you were just out of the hospital at the time,” Alana said, her fingers linking with Margot’s as she spoke. “It was a small affair. A few friends. Thank you the gift, it was beautiful.”

He had not known what to send, still reeling at the time from Molly’s departure, from his attack, from the pain in his face and his heart that felt too great for any one man to bear. The thought of celebrating the happiness of others, even those he loved, had seemed too great a task for him to perform adequately in that state. He had put it off and put it off until he couldn’t any longer, and had one night found himself in his boatshed with a few glasses of whiskey already swilling around his system and another in hand, and without really thinking about it he had set to work. He had worked all night in fact, finally falling asleep on the floor as the first grey light of dawn lit the horizon, waking later to stiff limbs and a sore head, and the thing he had crafted. It was a simple mobile crafted from fragments of driftwood he’d carved roughly into clouds, strung together with brown twine through which he’d laced some loose nuts and bolts from his workshop. Knowing they were planning to conceive at the time, a Verger baby in the works, it had seemed like a nice enough gift. A harmless thing from his destructive hands. 

“I’m sorry it wasn’t much… Gift-giving has never been a skill of mine.”

“We loved it,” Margot said. “And the baby will love it too.” 

Her hand stroked Alana’s swollen belly, her face creasing in affection. Alana put her hand over Margot’s, over the bump. A comfortable silence fell between them before Alana began to laugh.

“I’m sorry, we’re still very much in the honeymoon phase,” she said, blushing. 

“Wouldn’t want it any other way.”

“I’m being a terrible host – would you like something to drink? You’ve had a long journey.”

“I’ll get us a jug of iced tea,” Margot said, squeezing Alana’s fingers briefly before rising and leaving the room.

“So how are you doing, Will?” Alana asked, her eyes only falling back to Will once Margot was out of sight. “If you don’t mind my saying it, you look a lot better than the last time I saw you.”

He nodded, rubbing a hand over his rough chin and avoiding her eyes. “Yeah. I feel a lot better too. I’m doing alright. Great, actually.”

“Good. Have you, um… Look, Will, I think we’d both prefer if I just said it like it is rather than dancing around the issue. Jack told me your drinking has been getting out of hand since Molly left. I know that must have been very hard for you, especially after… Everything else. But we care about you. Are you…?”

“I’ve got it under control,” he said, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees with a small sigh, bowing his head. “I was drinking too much. I’m not anymore. That’s all there is to it.”

A small pause, and then Alana nodded. “I believe you. Honestly, you look good. Healthy. And there’s a certain spring to your step. Have you met someone?”

He hesitated, wetting his lips. He hoped Alana took his silence for regret rather than the preamble to an obvious lie. “No. I think I need to take some time to just… Be by myself again. With Molly gone and…” He shrugged, staring hard into the fire. 

Alana reached out and squeezed his hand. He felt the cool metal of her wedding ring brush his skin and thought of Hannibal. “I’m sorry, Will.”

He raised his head with a thin smile. “It’s ancient history now. I’m doing okay.”

A light patter of heels from the hallway, and Margot returned with an ice-choked jug on a silver tray. Will accepted his glass and watched Margot settle beside her wife again, leaning in to kiss her belly. Alana laughed and swatted her away.

“So what is this favour you came all this way to ask?” Margot said, turning back to Will.

He took a sip of his tea, his pulse thick in his throat. “I’m going away. I need to… Get out of the house for a little while. After everything that happened there… I need to clear my system.”

“Do you want to stay with us a while?” Alana said, glancing at Margot. “We have plenty of rooms. And once the baby comes, it’d be nice to have his godfather around.”

He smiled softly, glancing away. “Thank you for the offer, but I want to go a little further. Travel around a little bit. Maybe see something of the world. Find a corner of it that suits me.”

Alana’s analytical eyes bore into him; he felt a bead of sweat roll down the back of his neck. Alana couldn’t read him like Hannibal could, but she wasn’t stupid either. 

“Is it because of _him_ , Will?”

He didn’t need to ask who she meant. It was always him. “It’s not because of him. It’s because of me.”

A silence. He saw Margot swallow convulsively, her fingers gripping her wife’s hand a little harder.

“I’m not running away from him,” he said, his voice as calm and level as he could make it. “He won’t come for me. He won’t come for you either, Alana.”

“He promised he would kill me. That night in his kitchen, when I took the gun and…” Her eyes slipped closed, her back arching slightly in distress. Will knew very well what Hannibal had done to her – the months spent in the hospital and in physical therapy, the agonising pains that still crept up her damaged spine from time to time to wake her in the night when the nightmares didn’t beat them to it. 

“When you were brave,” Margot whispered, leaning in to kiss Alana lightly on the forehead until she opened her eyes.

“He won’t come for you, Alana,” Will repeated. The words _because I won’t let him_ sat heavily on his tongue, unspoken. “He’ll already be far away from here. I don’t think any of us will ever see him again. He won’t be caught a second time.”

“We should have killed him,” Alana murmured, resting her free hand on her belly as she spoke, as if to convince herself the child was still there, still safe from the nightmare coiled inside her hushed words. “I told them he was insane. I _lied_ for him, Will. He’s not insane. I should have let them give him the needle.” 

Will said nothing, swallowing down the horror he felt at those words. Alana let out a shaky laugh.

“It’s funny. In the kitchen that night, when I pulled the trigger… When nothing happened… For a moment, I thought I had shot him. It didn’t occur to me that he’d taken the bullets until he told me so. For a moment, I was sure that I had shot him and it hadn’t hurt him at all. I was sure that I couldn’t kill him, because he wasn’t human. And I was horrified.”

Margot put a calming hand on her shoulder but Alana shrugged her off. Her cheeks, once rosy with the warmth of the fire and the bloom of her pregnancy, suddenly looked very  
pale.

“We should have let them kill him, Will. We should have watched him die an _inelegant_ human death and been done with him. Then we could have been free.”

Will’s mouth felt very dry. The thought that he was denying Alana her closure by helping Hannibal to run was not a pleasant one; Alana had fought for him even when others had abandoned him, and deserved a good deal better than what Hannibal had done to her. He could feel Margot’s eyes on him, and in that moment he knew that she knew what he was planning. He looked at Alana instead, reaching out to take her hand.

“If he really wanted you dead, Alana, you’d be dead already and you know it. He’d have called in here on his way to Mexico. But you’re not dead. You’re safe, and you’ve got Margot, and the baby on the way. You’re free from him, you just need to let him go.”

There was a silence, and then Alana nodded, swallowing. “You’re right, Will. Is that what you’re doing? Letting him go.”

Margot’s accusing stare felt hot on his face. “I think so, yeah. That house just reminds me of Molly now, and what he did to us. I need to get away. And I wondered if you and Margot might be willing to take the dogs for me.”

He risked a glance at Margot, and found her smiling. “We’d be happy to,” she said.

“I know it’s a lot to ask… I certainly have a lot of them. If you want to give some of them away, just make sure they find good homes, won’t you? I’d do it myself but I want to get away as soon as possible.”

“We’ll look after them, we’ve got plenty of space,” Alana said, glancing around the vast room. “And then you’ll have a reason to come and visit.”

“That I will,” he said with a smile, though he knew that, if all went to plan, he would never see Alana or Margot again.

Alana patted his hand, then yawned. “Uh, I’m sorry Will, I’m so tired all the time lately. This little guy is really taking it out of me.”

“That’s alright – I’ll need to head off soon anyway. Long drive back, and I need to start packing.”

“I’ll walk Will to his car, you get some rest,” Margot said, leaning in to plant a kiss on Alana’s forehead before rising. Will followed suit, pausing to touch Alana’s shoulder briefly as he left the room. He was surprised to find that Margot did not head for the front entrance, instead leading him towards the stables. They did not speak again until they had entered the warm earthy-smelling space, when Margot finally rounded on him.

“Should I be concerned about you, Will?”

He offered a wry half-smile. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“How’s Dr Lecter?”

He held her gaze for thirty seconds before answering, sizing her up. “He’s doing fine. Happy as a clam to get out of his cage.”

“I don’t have the venom in me that my wife does towards that man, so I don’t want to get between the two of you. As far as I’m concerned, you’re both free to do whatever you want, so long as he stays away from Alana for the rest of her life. She thinks he’s coming after her, and despite what I tell her, I’m not entirely convinced that he won’t. So you need to promise me something, Will. Promise me he won’t hurt her. Swear to me that you won’t let him touch a hair on her head, or I’ll call the cops the second you leave.”

She had taken a step closer as she spoke, their heights almost matched in her elegant heels so they were practically nose to nose. Her face was set in determination, and he could see the protective love for Alana burning in her eyes, fierce and proud. He nodded slowly.

“I will never let him near her again, Margot. I promise. I won’t be letting him out of my sight. And I’ll make sure that he knows hurting her will be a deal breaker with me. He wouldn’t risk it.”

She stared him down a moment more, and then nodded, stepping back. “Well good. Because if he ever comes near this house again, I’ll kill him myself, and you too for lying to me. Alright?”

He raised an eyebrow slightly, but both were smiling. “Alright by me.”

“Do you think you’ll be happy with him?”

He strolled slowly across the stable to stroke the sleek nose of one of Margot’s horses before answering, feeling a slight blush creeping into his cheeks, like a schoolboy confessing his crush. “I think so, yes. It… It’s hard to explain. I know it’s not healthy. But I feel like myself around him, like I’ve been trapped in some strange performance my whole life before I found him, and now I can finally act naturally. It’s weird being with him… But it’s good. It’s excellent.”

“He once told me it’s good to be weird,” Margot murmured. “He was right. You’re both weirdos, but I’m happy for you.”

Will laughed. “I’m happy for us, too.”

“I’m not going to see you again, am I?”

He bowed his head. “No. We’re going far away from here and we don’t intend to be found. If you ever see our faces again, it’ll be on the news.”

“Old news, I hope. Please be careful, Will.”

“I will. I have something to lose now.”

Margot hesitated a moment, before crossing to the wall on which her riding gear was mounted and selecting a sturdy riding crop in black leather. She moved over to where Will stood and held it out to him in both hands, a mischievous smile creeping across her face.

“Consider this my wedding gift to the two of you.”

“We’re not married, Margot.”

“Well, the crop doesn’t need to know that, does it?” She pressed the implement into his hands, and gave his ass a playful slap. “Have fun.”

“Thank you. Take care of yourself, Margot. You’ve finally got the family you deserve. I’m happy for you.”

They stood for a moment, uncertain, before Margot threw her arms around him. She had never been one for physical contact, but Alana’s warm influence had made her open up in ways she’d always been afraid to. She held Will tightly and briefly, and then she walked him to his car. The dogs were gone, already settling in their lavish new home where Will knew they would be content. He said farewell to Margot with a quick kiss on the cheek, before beginning the long drive back to Florida. 

The drive did not feel nearly so long as it had before. Returning to Hannibal was a much happier experience than driving away from him had been. Will hummed and whistled along to the radio most of the drive, stopping even fewer times than he had on the way over, though he was hungry and exhausted as he approached the house. He barely noticed. His thoughts were directed solely toward the man he would find waiting for him. 

Until he saw the cars. 

His heart sank in his chest. A moment later, and he could not breathe as he comprehended the full magnitude of what he was seeing. It could not be. It couldn't. 

But it was.

As he turned the car onto the long, dusty drive that led up to his home, he found no less than ten law enforcement vehicles waiting for him. Local police cruisers with blue lights flashing in the gathering darkness, and black FBI vans with agents in body armour clustered around, heavily armed. 

And there, on his doorstep, was Jack Crawford.


	8. Chapter 8

_Self-preservation, nature’s first great law,  
All creatures, except man, doth awe._

 

He couldn’t breathe.

_Hannibal._

His fingers numb on the steering wheel. His mouth open in a gape of dismay. 

_Was Hannibal still here? Did he get out in time?_

Throat dry and aching. Heart pounding in his chest. It took a lot of effort to keep driving, to approach the scene as a dozen horrifically plausible scenarios raced through his mind, choking him with fear. 

_They had come to the house. They had found Hannibal. Hannibal was in the back of one of the armoured FBI vans, his wrist and ankles in shackles and half a dozen guns pointed at his head._

_They had come to the house. They had found Hannibal. Hannibal was already on his way back to prison. Already in a cell, locked away where Will couldn’t get to him ever again._

_They had come to the house. Hannibal had put up a fight. Hannibal was in hospital, riddled with bullets._

_They had come to the house. Hannibal was dead._

The thought that Hannibal might already be dead was too horrific to process, yet his mind looped over the idea again and again. The chilled stillness of the morgue with its stainless steel slabs. Hannibal’s body on a tray, carved open from sternum to groin, then stitched back together with black thread. Skin grey-white and lips blue. Eyes open. Looking at him without seeing him.

He pulled the car over beside Jack’s vehicle and killed the engine. He felt sick. 

_You’ve got to get it together. Act natural._

_Hannibal injured, Hannibal captured, Hannibal dead and already going cold in the morgue._

Less than seventy-two hours ago, Hannibal had been in his arms. They had kissed and fucked and loved one another, had known one another as intimately as two people can in this house now flooded with strangers. He had felt Hannibal’s living warmth, felt his breath on his face, the rise and fall of his chest with its soft down of grey hair. 

It did not seem real. Already, the memory of Hannibal here with him – their bodies together, their confessions of love, their plan to run away together – felt like a dream, fragile and distant. From the moment he saw Jack, something had snapped in his reality. Because if Jack was here, regardless of where Hannibal was, all that he and Hannibal had shared in the house might as well have been a dream. 

_If he’s dead, I’ll go with him. Better both of us than one._

It wouldn’t be difficult to get a local cop to shoot him. They usually had itchy trigger fingers. 

Jack watched him from the porch as Will opened the car door. Stepped onto the gravel. His legs were weak. He hunted for his tongue, his mouth dry as he walked towards the man. 

“Jack, what’s going-”

He did not have time to finish the sentence. With the power and agility that had always impressed him about the man, Jack was suddenly upon him, descending the steps and crossing the distance between them in seconds to slam Will against the door of his vehicle, their faces inches apart.

“WHERE IS HE?”

The relief which flooded him was so great that he could contain it fast enough; Jack saw it flit across his face, and his fury intensified for it. Will struggled to set his face in angry confusion, but he knew it was too late. The game was up. Jack knew. 

But Hannibal had gotten away. Hannibal was alive.

In that moment, nothing else mattered. His relief crashed over him like waves over the bluff, wearing him smooth, all his fears pulled free and carried away with the tide. Even with Jack’s forearm pressed against his throat, he felt calm. Euphoric, even. 

“What the hell is going on Jack?” he coughed out, doing his best to sound put-out by the situation.

Jack scowled. “Don’t play cute with me, Will. I know he was here.”

“Who? Hannibal?”

“Yes Hannibal, and you know exactly what I’m talking about. Your face told me so.”

Will tried to push Jack off, to no avail; the older man was a good deal bigger and stronger than him. “I haven’t seen him since he escaped. He hasn’t been by here, at least not to my knowledge. I’ve been away for a few days.”

His heart leapt into his throat. Had Margot called after all? No, he didn’t believe she would have lied to him. But perhaps Alana had overheard them, or one of their staff, and tipped the FBI. Jack acted fast.

He looked Jack in the eyes. “I haven’t seen him,” he repeated. “And unless you’re going to arrest me for something, I’d like you to get off my property now.”

One arm still pinning Will up against the car, Jack reached into the pocket of his coat and removed something which clinked metallically. 

“Really?” He raised the nipple clamps for Will to see, dangling them from one gloved finger. “I suppose you were using these on yourself then? And everything else we found in your bedroom as well.”

Will felt himself turn crimson. He was aware that several cops and crime scene investigators were listening in, Jimmy Price and Brian Zeller amongst them, and heard faint snickering from the gathered crowd. He forced himself to meet Jack’s piercing stare again, defiant now. 

“Maybe I was. Is that a crime now?”

“Enough games, Will. We know he was here, because he left in a hurry. We found his prints, and his DNA. Oh, the two of you left a _lot_ of DNA in the bedroom. And in the bathroom. And the kitchen. We know he was here, and we know you were with him. This will go a lot easier for you if you just tell me what you know. Now where is he?”

Will said nothing. There was no point. Jack wasn’t stupid; he knew there was no talking his way out of this. He was in a lot of trouble, and the weight of that knowledge was sure to come down to crush him later. But at this point in time, he didn’t care. He didn’t care what happened to himself; he would deal with the consequences of his decisions, come what may. All that mattered was that Hannibal was alive, and had escaped unharmed. He was free. 

He smiled softly to himself, glancing up at the darkening sky, the first stars of the evening twinkling dimly. It might be the last time he got to see the stars in a while. He wondered if Hannibal was watching the skies too at that moment, marvelling at the same stars. He felt, with irrational certainty, that he was. And he was happy.

He could go to prison, but the stars would remain. They would burn regardless of what happened to him. The thought comforted him. Hannibal could look upon these stars from Florence or Paris or an island in the Pacific and marvel at their cold and impassive beauty, even while he himself could not. 

“You can avoid prison time,” Jack was saying, his voice low and urgent, rational. How many times had Will heard that tone before? The voice of the interrogation room, the lifebelt thrown out by the just and true Saint Crawford of the FBI to some poor desolate drowning soul. “I can put in a good word with the DA. All the work you did for us will help your case. You just need to tell us where he is or where he’s going. If you don’t, I’ll throw the book at you myself. You’re my friend, Will, but you aided and abetted a wanted murderer. And there’s nothing I can do to help you if you don’t help yourself. Now where is Hannibal Lecter?”

Will laughed. He couldn’t stop himself. And as for helping himself… No, there was nothing he could do to save himself now. And maybe that was fine. 

Lowering his eyes from the beauty of the heedless stars, he stared Jack in the face and laughed. 

“I’m sorry, Jack, I really am, but I don’t know where Hannibal is. He didn’t have a plan in place for this situation, or at least not one that he told me about. We were planning to go together, you see. But don’t worry. You’re not going to see him again.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed, his lips twitching into a snarl. For a second, Will knew, Jack considered hitting him, bashing his head against the vehicle for his stupidity. He would have done the same thing, probably. 

Instead, Jack removed his hands and stepped back, palms out. Washing his hands of him.

“Will Graham, you are under arrest for aiding and abetting a fugitive,” he said. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you do say…”

Will tuned Jack out, tilting his head back to look at the stars a final time, putting his hands behind his back without being asked as an officer stepped forward to close handcuffs around his wrists and put him in the back of one of Jack’s car. He stared out the window, watching men and women in blue FBI jackets and latex gloves going in and out of the house that he and Molly had shared, that he and Hannibal had planned to leave together. He watched them carrying out his things in sealed evidence bags, and felt nothing. The only thing he cared about was long gone. He wondered if Hannibal had made it to the border yet.

The passenger door to the vehicle opened. Will glanced up, an eyebrow raised in weary curiosity. Brian Zeller was sitting in the passenger seat, looking at him in the rear-view mirror. 

“I’m sorry man,” he said. 

Will shrugged his shoulders slightly, not an easy task with his hands cuffed behind his back. “I only have myself to blame.”

Zeller stared at his knees. “We didn’t want to find anything in the house. Jimmy and me. We were hoping he’d done a good clean-up job, gotten rid of all traces of himself. But we must have caught him unawares; he left in a hurry. And it seemed like the two of you weren’t being particularly careful anyway in… Whatever you were doing.”

Will chuckled. “We were not, no.”

“It was like a motel bedroom in there. I didn’t want to touch _anything_.”

“We hadn’t seen each other in a while. Who turned us in?”

“Nobody, not exactly. Jack got suspicious as soon as he heard you were visiting Alana. He called her and she said you’d left your dogs with her. That was when he knew.”

Will nodded. It had been foolish to make the trip. But he couldn’t leave his dogs to starve in the house while he and Hannibal ran, and he knew that Hannibal had understood.

“I shouldn’t say this,” Zeller said, his words hushed and nervous, not at all like his usual brash self. “I shouldn’t be talking to you right now. But… I understand. Sort of. I understand why you wanted to leave with him.”

He looked out the window. Will followed his gaze to where Jimmy Price was bickering with a member of the local PD. The fondness in Zeller’s face was difficult to miss.

“Love doesn’t always make sense,” he said thoughtfully, scratching the rough stubble on his chin. “But you’d still do anything for the person you love, even if they drive you crazy sometimes.”

“Yeah,” Will murmured. 

“I’m sorry, Will,” Zeller said, looking over his shoulder at him. “I hope…”

He trailed off. There was nothing comforting he could say. After a minute, he simply shrugged and got out of the car, leaving Will alone. Will watched him cross the sandy yard to where Price stood and put a hand on the back of the man’s head, pulling him close for a tender kiss. He understood the need to remind oneself that the person they love is safe when they witness another suffer a loss. He did not hold it against them, though it made his heart ache. It dawned on him that he would not kiss Hannibal’s lips again, and he closed his eyes, wishing he could just turn his brain off and wallow in the silence, in the dark. But the world cares little for wishes. The most comfort he could find was in his memory palace, wading into the quiet of the stream. 

He remained that way, sitting quietly with his eyes closed and his head bowed, until the passenger door opened again. Jack slipped into the seat. An armed fed took the wheel, and another sat alongside Will in the back. Jack turned to look at him, his face weary.

“Ready to go, Will? We were going to let you spend a night in a holding cell at the local police department, let you mull things over and maybe loosen your tongue. But I’ve got this horrible suspicion that you were telling the truth. You don’t know where he is, do you? He’s abandoned you.”

Will did not rise to the goad. The water rushed around his ankles. The wind blew in his hair. The firmness of the rod in his hand, the slight pull of the current against the line calmed him. He smelled pine needles. 

“Instead, we’re going to take you to the station to process you,” Jack said, reaching out to snap fingers in front of Will’s face, check he was listening. “We’re going to take you back to Baltimore, tonight. Then we’re going to try you as an accessory. You’re going away for a long time, Will.”

Insects hummed in the warm air. Hannibal was free. The water was cold against his legs and Hannibal was free. A fish took the bait. Hannibal was free. Nothing else mattered.

Jack sighed. “Alright, let’s go.”

Will stared out the window into the dark, watched his little house shrink into the distance, until the car turned the corner at the end of the drive and he lost sight of it. He knew he would not see it again. He swallowed, closing his eyes and stepping into the stream once more.

One day, he thought, he might find Hannibal there, waiting for him.


	9. Chapter 9

_The grave’s a fine and private place,  
But none, I think, do there embrace. _

 

He was quiet as they processed him at the station in town, bagging the few possessions he had on him, his wallet and car keys and watch, taking his clothes. He suffered through the humiliating strip search, his jaw tightly clenched and his eyes fixed straight ahead as he removed his clothes and bent over, ignoring the mutters and sniggers that came from the sight of his skin with its colourful composition of bruises and hickeys, marks from Hannibal’s nails, from his teeth. He dressed without objection in the orange jumpsuit that was thrown at him when it was over, but without feeling any relief; this situation felt horribly familiar, and the outfit only made that worse. Only, the last time this happened to him, he had been innocent. 

He could feel the eyes of the local cops, bright and shining with morbid interest, eating up the sight of him as they put him in restraints to transport. They had always found him strange, whispers about his work with the FBI circulating as soon as he had arrived in town, this reclusive scarred man burnt out from his encounters with killers – and of course, they’d all read the Tattle-Crime articles about him. Now they had their confirmation. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. As he was put in the back of the armoured transport van, Jack Crawford settling on the bench opposite him looking angry but so weary, Will thought about Hannibal. Hannibal free, living a good life, making the most of it while he himself could not. That thought filled him with happiness. He could live in a cage if it meant Hannibal would be free.

No greater love hath man than to lay down his life for a friend. This was his gift to Hannibal. After everything they had been through, he would give up his freedom, give up the life they had planned together, for the sake of his friend. So Hannibal could have his life. So Hannibal could be happy. 

Jack was watching him as the van set off towards Baltimore, his face steely. On either side of him sat a heavily armed agent, but still Crawford was the most intimidating man in the vehicle, even looking tired and worn out by Will and the world. He’d lost some weight, and his shirt and tie were rumpled beneath the bulletproof vest he was wearing. 

“How’s Bella?”

Jack’s eyes flashed with fury. “You don’t talk about my wife, do you understand me?” he said, his words slow and quiet. “Her name does not cross your tongue again.”

“I know you’re angry at me, Jack. I’d be angry too. I am sorry.”

“You should be sorry,” Jack said, eyes narrowing. “You knowingly let a murderer escape.”

Will nodded, shifting slightly, trying in vain to get comfortable on the meta bench, his chains rattling. “I did, yes. But we were going to go together. And I would have kept him in line. You wouldn’t have heard from us again. Nobody needed to get hurt.”

“I’m not the bad guy here, Will. However you choose to phrase it, you prevented us bringing a serial killer to justice.”

“I could live with the thought of Hannibal in prison,” Will murmured, glancing down at the cuffs around his wrists, the chains connecting them to his ankles. “I _did_ live with that, for over a year. But you and I both know that you don’t want him in prison, Jack. You want him dead. If you’d caught him, he’d die with a needle in his arm before the year was through. And that thought I can’t live with, I just can’t.”

“Killing Hannibal Lecter is the only way to _stop_ Hannibal Lecter,” Jack said. “It’s the only way any of us will ever be able to wash our hands of him.”

Will lifted his eyes to meet Jack’s. They felt very heavy. “And that’s the problem. I don’t want to wash my hands of him. You can call it an obsession or an addiction, fine, but it is what it is.”

“And what is it?”

“I’m… I’m in love with him, Jack. It’s not something I can control, but that’s what it is.”

Jack made a small noise of disgust and glanced away. Will knew that Jack couldn’t stand to look at him right now. He wanted to hit him, or to shake him. He would never understand how it happened, his friend, an intelligent man, led so far astray by this monster. He didn’t need to understand. His obsession with catching Hannibal would never be sated until one man or the other was in the ground, but at least he’d be able to rest easier knowing that Will was far away where Hannibal couldn’t get to him. He could find some satisfaction in knowing that he had taken something from Hannibal that he loved. Even if that came at the cost of sacrificing his friend.

“I thought you were smart, Will,” he said, with a small shake of his head, a slight smirk. “You let him play you. And now he’s run off and left you to suffer the consequences. There’s a lot of fear and anger floating around since he got out, and it needs to be taken out on someone. If the courts can’t have another stab at Dr Lecter, you know they’ll want to throw the book at the next best thing. And here you are.”

Will said nothing, too tired to rise to Jack’s taunts. Once he might have doubted Hannibal’s motives, but not anymore. He knew that Hannibal loved him too much to have played him for a fool. 

Nothing Jack could say could make him regret that Hannibal had gotten away. As the van wound down the darkened roads, he tilted his head back and dreamt of Hannibal roaming free. He would be okay. They both would.

Over the steady rumble of the van’s engine, a new sound penetrated the night. The deep growl of another engine, a motorbike. Will did not pay it much attention at first, until he heard the men up front begin to mutter in urgent voices. He opened his eyes and saw Jack staring at him, alert and angry. 

“What-” Jack began, before the noise of the motorbike increased to a roar and whatever he had wanted to say was lost to chaos. 

It happened so fast that Will was not entirely aware of what occurred – only of the sudden rush of violent sounds and movements that assaulted him from all angles, of the terror which gripped his chest. He thought he heard a series of gunshots and the driver cry out, and then the transport van lurched across the road and hit the shoulder hard, tilting nauseatingly before careening down the side of the hill. With a feeling of sickening weightlessness, Will felt himself lift and slam back down against the van’s side as it rolled, again and again, aware of the body of another man hit his own before falling away again, lost to the chaos. The chains connecting his wrists and ankles were still fastened to the van’s floor; one wrist was jerked at an impossible angle, and he screamed as he felt the bone break. Then his head smacked the metal bench on which he had been sitting seconds ago, and he wasn’t aware of very much of anything for a moment.

Blackness. He hurt. 

Blackness. Screeching metal, and someone screaming. Perhaps it was him.

Blackness, and the taste of blood in his mouth. Pain splintering through him. The smell of smoke. He thought his eyes were open, but he couldn’t see. He thought he must be dead. 

He passed out. 

When he came to, the van was on its side. Jack Crawford and one of the agents lay unconscious beside him. The other appeared to be dead, his face smashed into an unrecognisable pulp and a pool of blood leaking from under his chest. Pain. Pain. Pain in his wrist and his ribs, his head, one of his legs. He seemed to have bitten deep into his tongue. He tried to move and choked on a scream, blood gargling in his throat. Will blacked out again.

He dreamt that Hannibal was there. Through a greyish haze he imagined he saw the van’s back door being pulled open and Hannibal crouching to step through it. Hannibal, kneeling over him and checking his pulse. Fingers on his neck, surprisingly warm and gentle. A hand on his face. 

“Ha-Hannibal…” he whimpered, the sound broken and needy and pathetic. He saw Hannibal’s face crumple and realised he was not dreaming. He could never dream such an awful sight as Hannibal’s face looking like that.

“You’re badly injured,” Hannibal said, his own voice rough and unhappy. “I’m sorry, Will. I could not think of any other way to stop them taking you.”

“It’s okay,” Will murmured, his eyes slipping closed briefly before Hannibal’s hand patted his face urgently and he opened them groggily. “It’s okay… As long as you’re free… I don’t… I don’t care what happens to me… I love you…”

He saw Hannibal’s throat working to swallow. In the low light of the truck and the dull haze clouding his vision, it was difficult to be sure, but he thought he saw tears shining in the corners of Hannibal’s eyes. 

“I love you too,” Hannibal murmured. “And I very much care what happens to you. Now let’s get you out of here.”

He slid his hands under Will’s armpits and pulled him into a sitting position as carefully as he could, but the movement jerked his injured leg and Will could not help himself but to scream. He pushed his face against Hannibal’s chest and wept against his shirt, feeling Hannibal cling to him at once, one hand rubbing his back and the other stroking his hair, his chin resting on top of Will’s head as he murmured soothing words. 

“Your leg is broken in at least two places,” he said gently. “You’ve broken your wrist and I’d wager some of your ribs as well; you likely have a concussion, and I’m going to need to stop the bleeding from your head wound as soon as possible, but at this moment we must get out of here. It won’t take long for somebody to spot the wreckage from the road, and soon the police will be upon this place. We do not want to be here when that happens. I need to get you on your feet, and it’s going to hurt, but you need to do it. Do you think you can do this for me Will?”

Will nodded, swallowing hard. It felt like there was blood running down his face, into one of his eyes; he could feel it beading on his lashes, and saw the dark stain he’d left on Hannibal’s shirt. But he felt strangely disconnected from his own body, as though he were feeling the world through a heavy hazmat suit as opposed to his own skin. Only the pain was real. Shaking, struggling to swallow past the blood in his throat, he let Hannibal uncurl him from their soft embrace and tried to steel himself for the fierce pain again, but Hannibal did not immediately try to move him again. After a moment, Will saw what had caused him to become distracted. 

The agent who was still alive seemed to have woken up. He was twitching, making small choked noises deep in his throat, but his hand was inching across the floor to where his gun lay in a pool of the other agent’s blood. Hannibal stroked Will’s face briefly, then got up and crossed over to where the man lay. He took the man’s chin in the crook of his elbow and twisted. The agent fell limp in his arms. 

Then he turned toward Jack.

“No, Hannibal…” Will murmured, forcing himself to sit up straighter despite the pain. “Hannibal… Don’t…”

Hannibal looked up at him, a slight twitch to his jaw, his eyes feral from the kill. He glanced down at Jack, helpless beneath him. 

“If I don’t, he will never stop coming for us. You know that. It’s in his nature.”

“When have you ever been afraid… Of people hunting you?” Will said weakly. “Killing Jack won’t stop people looking for us. But we’re faster than them… Smarter… And eventually, they’ll get tired, find someone else to hunt, and leave us alone. Now leave him.”

“He hurt you,” Hannibal said. “He put you in harm’s way.”

“ _You_ hurt me. You were the danger he put me in front of. And I forgave you. I forgive Jack, too.”

Hannibal stood perfectly still for a moment, his face frozen in a snarl. Then it softened. He knelt over Jack and rooted in his pockets until he found the key to Will’s cuffs, before clambering back over to Will, stooping so as not to hit his head. His fingers were calm and steady as he freed Will from his shackles, and then his hands were pulling him up again and out, out, toward freedom. 

The move was agonising, and Will screamed and groaned and swore and gritted his teeth, but the warmth of Hannibal’s strong arms around him, Hannibal’s body against his, made it seem tolerable. When he tried to put some weight on his broken leg, the pain was so great that he almost blacked out again, but he worked through it. He concentrated on the words of encouragement and compassion Hannibal was murmuring to him, blinking through the blood in his eyes. He was going to be okay. They were going to be okay. 

It took a very long time for Hannibal to help get Will out of the overturned van. They stood in the cool night, catching their breath, Will clinging to Hannibal for dear life as he swayed violently, tears streaming uncontrollably down his cheeks. Hannibal almost risked knocking them both over to kiss Will fiercely on the mouth, before half-carrying him to the spot where he’d propped his motorbike against a tree. Where he had gotten it, Will had no idea; it could have been hidden somewhere near his home since Hannibal first showed up he supposed. Hannibal had probably killed someone to get it. He would normally have felt an uncomfortable twist of something close to guilt at this thought, but now he felt nothing, only steely determination to survive this night. After all, he had watched Hannibal kill an innocent fed in the van, and he had done nothing. He was well past the point of no return. 

“This is going to be very difficult for you, and uncomfortable,” Hannibal murmured, sounding genuinely apologetic. “I just need you to hold onto me as tightly as you can. When the chance presents itself, we will take a car and you can lay down in the back until I get us somewhere safe to treat your wounds. And then we’ll go…”

“Where?” Will croaked. He was struggling to conjure the old fantasies he had harboured about their life together; the pain in his body and his head was so severe that all he could picture was darkness, and cold, and he was slipping into it by degrees. Hannibal clung to him tightly, almost desperately. Illuminated by the shafts of moonlight which fell through the trees, his face looked like stone – like a beautiful statue, Will thought dreamily. Rigid and sincere and eternal. Grieving. Like something one might find in a graveyard. 

“Anywhere, Will, I will go anywhere with you,” Hannibal said, his voice very rough, breaking. “Even into death, if that is the only place made for us to be together. But I do not believe that to be true. Now sit down.”

With utmost care, he guided Will to sit down and lifted his injured leg over the seat of the bike until he was straddling it properly. Will gritted his teeth, tears leaking uncontrollably down his cheeks, cutting clear trails through the blood. He swayed and lurched forward, but managed to right himself. Hannibal watched him closely until he was sure he was stable, then cupped his jaw, thumb stroking the scar on his cheek.

“We’re going to be okay,” Will whispered, head lolling against Hannibal’s warm, comforting hand, his eyelids fluttering, but managing to smile through the pain because Hannibal was here, Hannibal was holding him. 

“Yes,” Hannibal murmured, and his smile was the only thing Will would ever need for sustenance. 

“HANNIBAL. STOP.”

The gunshot pierced the air before Will could register who had spoken. His brain did not seem to be working at the right speed; events occurred to him in an unnatural order, too fast, too slow, and he felt no emotion at first other than confusion. 

Blood, not his own, spattering him. The warmth of it on his face, on his hands. How black it looked in the moonlight.

A ringing in his ears. A thick silence swaddling him for a moment, before the soft sounds of the night and the trees stuttered back in. 

Hannibal’s hands coming up to clutch his side, clutch the ragged hole that had been opened up in him. His lips parting in surprise. One knee buckling and his body crumpling slowly to the ground, his face frozen in a grimace of pain. 

And Jack Crawford, crawling from the overturned van with blood on his face and his gun in his hand. Obviously injured, but determined. He planned to kill Hannibal. It was written all over his face.

Will looked down at Hannibal, his own injuries forgotten as fear pierced his heart and consumed him. Hannibal met his eyes, his own surprisingly clear and calm but beginning to show evidence of the pain he was in. Blood pumped between his fingers, clenched tight over his wound. Even through the panic clouding his mind, Will knew enough about human anatomy to know it would not be fatal, so long as Hannibal tended to it soon. But he also knew that Jack Crawford would not stop until he had put a bullet through Hannibal’s head.

“Jack,” Will called, hearing the desperation in his voice and not caring. “Stop. Please.”

Jack tried to stand, stumbled, and went down heavily to his knees. “Stay out of this, Will. Don’t make me shoot you as well.”

“If you kill Hannibal, you’ll have to kill me as well. If you don’t… I’ll do it to myself. You know I will.”

“You’re not suicidal, Will.”

“No. But you forced me to get so deep inside Hannibal’s head that we began to blur. I can’t survive separation from him anymore. You did this to me. And you’ll have to live with the guilt.”

“I think that’s a risk I’m willing to take,” Jack said, trying to stand again and failing; his ankle appeared broken. “You’re not well, Will. He’s poisoned your mind. We can get you help. You can survive this.”

“You can’t save me, Jack. I don’t want to be saved. Just let us go and you won’t hear from us again – this can end without any more bloodshed.”

“Jack,” Hannibal said, voice ragged but menacing, teeth bared in a snarl. He had managed to crawl to his feet as Will spoke, though his knees did not seem entirely stable. “So tenacious. I have always admired that quality in you. But tonight you would do well to look the other way. If you try to hurt me or Will again, I will have to kill you.”

Jack smiled, on his knees but steady and determined, lifting his gun to aim squarely at Hannibal’s head. “You’re in no position to make that threat. Goodbye, Dr Lecter.”

It happened so fast that it took Will’s addled mind a moment to catch up. Jack’s finger tightening on the trigger. Hannibal removing his hands from his wound to reach behind himself and pull a narrow blade he had concealed in his belt. The glint of the blade in the moonlight, and Jack’s cry as it drove into his hand, deep enough to graze bone. The gun firing wild, before falling from his fingers as he moved to tug the blade from his knuckles. 

And then Hannibal was climbing onto the bike in front of him and guiding Will’s numb arms around him, instructing him to hold on tight, Will shuddering deeply as his fingers brushed through the hot wet patch on Hannibal’s shirt that was his life leeching out him. The bike roared to life beneath them, the pain reawakening in Will’s body as the movement jerked him, and he closed his eyes and focussed on the feeling of Hannibal in front of him, of holding on with every ounce of strength he had left, clutching him so tight that he must have been making it difficult for Hannibal to breathe, but he didn’t seem to mind. 

The bike climbed the hill back to the highway, another gunshot ringing through the air somewhere nearby as Jack got hold of his gun again and pursued, and then they hit tarmac and were away. Will pressed his face to Hannibal’s back, the sound of the engine and his own heartbeat deafening in his ears. He turned back only once. Jack had managed to crawl onto the road, too far away to hit them now, but it would not be long before reinforcements arrived. His mind starting to slip into the blackness once more, he wondered distantly if this had all been for naught. 

He wondered if they could make it to a safe place before Jack caught up.

He wondered if he could hold on, when staying conscious was an effort that was becoming more and more difficult to maintain.

He wondered if Hannibal would bleed to death before either could do anything about it.

He wondered if they might not be better driving the bike into the sea, and going together. 

Clinging tightly to the man he loved, fighting for every moment of consciousness he had left, Will wondered if there was any life for them waiting at the end of this endless night. 

“I love you, Will,” Hannibal said, tears rolling freely down his cheeks – but perhaps they were only caused by the wind on his face. 

He was never sure if Will heard for the noise of the engine.

 

*

 

Watch from afar as the headlamps drift through the night like a firefly, pressing forward along the winding roads – towards what, we do not know. We know that they are happy, even in the agony of not knowing. 

But we remember as well that fireflies live such fleeting lives.


	10. Chapter 10

_**Two Years Later**_

 

Jack Crawford walked near the Obelisk on the Avenida de Julio in the early evening, carrying Bella in his hands. 

The sky was dusky pink and the evening was warm enough not to wear a coat. They had arrived in Buenos Aires early and had spent much of the day in the Museo Nacional, walking its red halls until Jack’s feet were sore. Now he was searching for a pleasant café where they could sit outside and he could eat and have a glass of wine before returning to the hotel. 

Limousines were backed up at the Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires’ spectacular opera house. Jack stopped to watch the opera lovers go in. Tamerlane was playing with an excellent cast, and a Buenos Aires opening night crowd is worth seeing.

Jack glanced down at the carved wooden box in his hands. 

“Bella, you up for the opera? I think you’d like it. I’ll spring.”

They had been travelling for almost a month now, places Bella loved, places they had always said they would visit but never did. After the funeral was done with and his retirement papers were filed, he’d packed a light bag and off they went. Istanbul and Budapest. The Château de Chillon on Lake Geneva, and the sprawling glens of the Scottish Highlands. Eventually, he would take her back to Italy where they met, and release her to the wind to have her own adventures. But for now, he was content to see as many beautiful things as he could with her beside him, for the last time.

At that moment a Mercedes Maybach, deep blue and silver, whispered up to the curb outside the opera house. A doorman hurried to open the car door. 

A man, slender and elegant in white tie, got out and extended his hand to help his partner step out, waiting until he had straightened up before leaning in to kiss him tenderly, one hand on the back of his neck. The sight of them raised an admiring murmur in the crowd around the entrance. This second man was shorter and bearded, his dark curls swept back from his face. Jack saw him only briefly, through the heads of the crowd, before he and the gentleman he was with were swept inside. 

The first man he saw better. A fleeting glimpse of sleek hair and striking cheekbones. 

Jack stood frozen for several minutes, long after he lost sight of them. He did not remember making the decision to follow them, but soon he was standing in the lobby of the opera house with the ticket tucked in his breast pocket. The only one available had been in the rafters among the students. Anticipating the altitude of his seat, he rented field glasses, though he had lost interest almost entirely in the performance.

The enormous theatre is a mix of Italian Renaissance, Greek and French styles, lavish with brass and gilt and red plush. Jewels winked in the crowd like camera flashes at a ball game.

Just before the houselights went down, sweeping the house from the cheap seats with Bella on his lap, Jack found them. They had just come through the gold curtains into their ornate box beside the stage. They looked startlingly close in the lens of the field glasses. 

The bearded man was younger than his partner by some years, but there was something refined about him, a dignity in the way he held himself that did not make this immediately obvious. His eyes swept over the house, swept over the section where Jack sat and moved on. The older man had eyes only for his partner, watching him with an adoration that appeared almost reverential, even viewed from such a great distance. The bearded man leaned in to his partner and said something, and they both laughed. The older man took his hand and stroked it. They kissed lightly on the mouth. They were wearing matching rings. 

“Will,” Jack said under his breath. His voice was lost in applause as the curtain rose.

Jack had a lot of trouble following the first act of the opera. As soon as the lights came up for the first intermission, he raised his glasses to the box again. The older man took a champagne flute from a waiter’s tray and handed it to his partner, and took a glass himself. He raised it to his lips, pausing before taking a sip, tilting his head slightly as he savoured the taste, eyes closing momentarily. It was a gesture that Jack remembered vividly. He’d spent enough time at the man’s table.

As Jack watched, the older gentleman’s head turned as though to catch a distant sound, turned in Jack’s direction. The gentleman raised opera glasses to his eyes. Jack could have sworn the glasses were aimed at him. 

His heart skipped a beat. He put a hand over Bella, his mind racing. In the box, the gentleman put a hand on his partners’ arm to get his attention, leaning in to murmur in his ear. Will raised his own glasses to his eyes, and suddenly both he and Hannibal were looking at Jack. 

Jack stood up. With Bella clasped in both hands, he turned and walked out of the theatre. On the steps outside, he paused and had to sit down. He was shaking.

Putting Bella down beside him, he reached for his cell phone. Then he stopped. Breathed deeply. He could hear Bella’s rational and patient voice in his head, as clearly as if she were whispering in his ear. Perhaps, somewhere, she was.

_Leave them alone, Jack. You know how this will end._

If he called the local police, people were going to end up dead. Himself likely among them. 

_Don’t follow me into the ground, Jack. Let sleeping dogs lie._

He had been obsessed with catching the Ripper for too long, and it had almost been the death of him. There had been a time, when Bella was at her sickest and he had lost all hope in the world, when he had thought about ending his own life when she was gone. Taking what remained of her pain medication, and rolling onto her side of the bed to die. 

But something had happened when she died. His grief had been enormous, but he had not felt hopeless. Far from it. He felt her absence like a draft around the house, but in his heart he felt her, safe and warm. He would join her in whatever came after when it was his time, but he felt a calm certainty that that time was not now. Bella would not allow him to visit her too soon. The same woman who had once made him keep an eye on his ticker and his blood pressure was keeping an eye on him now, even if only in his memory. 

He knew that if he left Hannibal alone, Hannibal would leave him alone. If he walked away and told no one what he had seen, Hannibal would make no plans to call on him. There was no need for this to end in bloodshed. 

In the end, Jack made his decision because of Will. He had seen him for only a few minutes, but he knew that Will was finally happy. There was no way that he could bring Hannibal down without also destroying Will’s life entirely. After all that Jack had put him through, he owed Will his happiness now. 

This was not a defeat, or a surrender. It was a victory, in its own strange way. A chance to reclaim his own life, to free himself. And he trusted Will to keep Hannibal in line.

With Bella held firmly in steady hands, Jack returned to his hotel room and packed his bag. He took the next flight out of Buenos Aires, and never saw Will or Hannibal again.


	11. Epilogue

Follow this handsome couple from the opera? Alright, but very carefully…

The Mercedes purrs through the Recoleta district to the Avenida Alvear and disappears into the courtyard of an exquisite Beaux Arts building near the French Embassy. Hannibal insists on getting Will’s door for him, as he always does, and the two link hands before entering the house. Hannibal is still humming notes from an aria as they climb the stairs.

Inside, the air is soft and a late supper is laid on the terrace of the top floor. Will moves to greet the dogs as Hannibal removes his jacket and tie and uncorks the wine. Dr Lecter has many houses, and the pair travel often, but they both enjoy Argentina and this house has come to feel like home. It is here they spend the most time. It was here that they married, a private ceremony, more to appease Hannibal’s love of old-fashioned romance than anything else, though Will still thrills to look upon the matching rings they wear and know that Hannibal belongs to him entirely, and vice versa. It was here that Hannibal finally caved and allowed Will to adopt a dog, stating firmly that he could have only one. They currently have six, one of which is pregnant. Hannibal has put his foot down about keeping any the puppies, but already a place has been made for them. Both know by now that Hannibal would deny Will nothing.

Hannibal brushes dog hair off Will’s pants, tutting, as he hands him a glass of wine. They sit down to eat, discussing the opera and Jack Crawford, without any real concern; Will is sure that Jack is no threat, and Hannibal trusts his judgement. Dr Lecter and Will often talk at dinner in languages other than English. Hannibal has found that Will has an aptitude for languages and a good ear. They speak Italian a lot at meal-times; Will finds a curious freedom in the visual nuances of the language. Hannibal is currently trying to teach him his native Lithuanian. 

In addition to languages, Hannibal has delighted in teaching Will to play the harpsicord. He is still a little shaky, but is improving by the day. He will often play for hours at a time while Hannibal cooks or reads or paints. Hannibal paints regularly, and Will is more often than not his subject. Will was embarrassed at first by how many nudes of him that Hannibal produced and left unashamedly around the house when they had guests, but now he marvels at how Hannibal sees him and how exquisitely he captures him; sometimes soft and boyish, curled in post-coital bliss in satin sheets with sleepy eyes and pink parted lips; sometimes dominant and sublime, a little frightening in his raw power and beauty. At first, he would not allow Hannibal to sell the pictures, but in recent years he has softened to the idea. The paintings hang in galleries around Buenos Aires, and many have been purchased and carried halfway across the world. It is possible that you might one day stumble across one. Will’s face is always obscured in the portraits they sell, but you may recognise him by his scars.

Hannibal is also teaching Will how to cook. In return, Will is moulding Hannibal into a capable angler on their regular fishing trips. He is a good student, but Will has not let him forget the time he fell headfirst into the water. 

Sometimes our couple dances at dinnertime. Sometimes they do not finish dinner. 

Sex is a splendid structure that Hannibal and Will add to every day. Some days Will allows Hannibal to guide his body completely and have him in any way he desires, as docile as a kitten and obedient to a fault, amazed that after all this time together, Hannibal is still able to reduce him to an incoherent mess with his skilled tongue or fingers alone, though he will rarely stop there. Other days, he will have Hannibal tied to the bed or the kitchen table or standing with his legs spread and his wrists bound by rope from the ceiling, his thighs and buttocks striped red from the cane or the crop, overwhelmed with pain and pleasure and begging to be taken, when he is allowed to speak. Hannibal has discovered that both ways thrill him equally, and he is frequently surprised and awed by Will’s enthusiasm and his openness, his power and his mercy. Will is flattered by how blatantly Hannibal worships his body, even in public, and his desire is as voracious as Hannibal’s. There are many mornings when Hannibal wakes to the beautiful sight of Will straddling him with that hungry look in his eye, pleading Hannibal to hurry up and put his cock up his ass before breakfast. 

Will has had a small amount of cosmetic surgery, and the scar on his face is far less conspicuous than it once was. Still, he is forever self-conscious about it and has grown out his beard to hide it somewhat. Hannibal grumbled about it at first because the beard rubbed his inner thighs raw whenever Will sucked his cock, which he is prone to doing often, but both know that Hannibal loves it. He will sometimes retaliate by resisting shaving himself for several days before spending an evening between Will’s thighs, and Will laughs at how petty he is, but not for long as Hannibal pushes fingers or a wet tongue into him and has him gasping and clutching at the sheets and almost screaming within minutes. 

Hannibal’s hair is streaked with silver. He dyed it for a time, but ceased when Will admitted how sexy he found it. Will himself has a small amount of grey above the ears, a few flecks in his beard. Hannibal adores watching him age and change before his eyes, and Will can hardly drag his eyes away from Hannibal sometimes, still awed that he ended up with someone so handsome. 

Will’s memory palace is building well. It shares some rooms with Dr Lecter’s– he discovers Will in there often, victorious – but Will’s palace grows on its own. It is full of new things. He can visit Abigail there, and Beverly. They are safe, and always happy. 

About a year after he and Hannibal ran, he sent an untraceable parcel to the Bloom-Verger household, with a small gift for his godson and a note for his friends: 

 

_Dear Margot and Alana,_

_I’m fine and better than fine._

_Don’t worry about me. I love you both. I’m sorry if I scared you. Please burn this and don’t tell Jack. His obsession will be the death of him._

_You will not see or hear from us again._

_Will_

 

Alana was angry at first. She threatened to throw the stuffed lamb that Will had sent into the fire along with the letter. Margot calmed her, and she cried for a time, before agreeing that it was good that Will was happy. She does not fear for her life any longer. She knows that Will would not allow Hannibal to hurt her.

Will and Hannibal are profoundly happy. They do not kill often or conspicuously, both wishing to preserve the life they have crafted together, but when they do it is glorious. Will keeps Hannibal in check; they kill only those that Will deems unworthy of living. Hannibal’s standards of _rude_ are a little different from Will’s own, but Hannibal will always defer to Will’s judgement. Watching Will flex his predatory muscles and carve up a body at his side is the greatest pleasure Hannibal has ever known. 

Will cannot remember why he resisted this life for so long. He finds he is so happy that sometimes he fears he will awaken and find it was only fantasy. But the comfort he finds in Hannibal’s strong arms is too pure and good to be a dream. 

Hannibal is more in love than ever he thought possible. 

We’ll withdraw now, while they dance on the terrace. The wise Jack Crawford has already left town, and we must follow his example. For either of them to discover us would be fatal.

We can only learn so much and live.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter and epilogue of this work are a complete rewriting of the final chapters of Thomas Harris' novel 'Hannibal', of which I am not a fan. This is something I have wanted to do for some time, as that ending really bothers me. Hopefully this ending will please you to read as much as it pleased me to write.
> 
> The fragments of poetry which preceded chapters 1-9 can all be found in the collected works of Andrew Marvell. The elaborate metaphors, carpe diem attitude and sense of humour found in the metaphysical poets' work is something I believe resonates with Hannibal's language and so it felt appropriate. 
> 
> This work was started before season three aired, and finished after. As such, it does not entirely fit the show's story-line, as I could not predict where season three was going to go. I have done my best to work around that and get to a similar place, but there are still discrepancies which I hope you will forgive.
> 
> Thank you to everybody who read, commented on, and left kudos for this work while I was writing it. I am still somewhat shaky in the world of fic-writing, but your kind words were invaluable in aiding me to finish this piece. I shall no doubt be writing more soon enough.


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